


Til Death

by consciousness_streaming



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blowjobs, Brain tumor, But they think someone might die, Fake Marriage, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Seizures, Sex, Sick Character, Weddings, no one dies, still on youtube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-01-04 11:42:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12168174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consciousness_streaming/pseuds/consciousness_streaming
Summary: After discovering that Dan's recent strange behavior is caused by a brain tumor, Dan and Phil make some interesting choices.





	1. Chapter 1

“What are you doing, Dan,” Phil cuts off the camera with an uncharacteristic aggressiveness, “We can’t use any of that. What’s up with you?”

Dan looks at the computer screen in front of them, loaded up with the Golf with Friends start menu. They were just doing their introduction for this new video and Phil won’t let him say anything. Dan caters to Phil’s criteria when they are on his channel, but this is for the gaming channel and he can say whatever the fuck he wants, “What are you talking about?”

“Dan! You just implied I’m going to use golf balls as anal beads on you! What do you mean ‘what are you talking about?’” Phil looks ready to pull his fringe out and his eyes have gone a bit crazy and even though Dan still doesn’t get why that’s a big deal, he respects that Phil’s upset about it.

“Okay okay, I don’t see what was wrong with that, but let’s do it again,” he says, taking off the obnoxious green felt golfing hat that Phil insists that they wear whenever they play this game. He already has green fuzzies all in his hair and no manner of brushing his fingers through the curls is going to make all of them disappear.

Phil doesn’t take his own hat off, he just _stares_ at Dan until Dan starts to feel like he’s x-raying his non-existent soul or something. It’s very unnerving.

“What?” Dan says, the staring totally getting to him.

Phil finally comes out of the trance, throws his own hat off and chucks it onto the sofa behind them, “Really, what’s up with you? You’re usually so careful about what you say and how you say it and for weeks you don’t seem to care about that anymore. It’s gotten really bad these last few videos. Editing has been a nightmare and I still couldn’t get rid of everything without missing large chunks of Dil’s life.”

Dan sighs and just keeps himself from rolling his eyes. That definitely won’t help the situation. Phil rarely decides that they need to have a conversation these days, but when he does, he takes it very seriously.

When Dan doesn’t speak, Phil continues, “and it’s more than that. You’ve been tweeting some strange things, like strange even for you. The fans are starting to pick up on it. Are you okay? Are you going through something? You know you can tell me anything. I just want to help.”

“Phil,” Dan begins, not really knowing where the sentence is going to take him, “I’m fine. I’m just loosening up some, being more candid with the audience.”

“That’s not true,” Phil protests, “you would have discussed that with me. You know our brand is so intertwined that what you do affects me and you’ve never been so uncaring before,” He stares uncomfortably into Dan’s eyes again and Dan resists the urge to look away, because that would be a sign of weakness, “it’s almost like you don’t even realize, like you haven’t thought through what you’re going to say. Like your filter is gone.”

Dan stands up, “I’m going to get a ribena. I’ve gotta—“

Phil pulls at his arm until he’s forced to sit again, “Why are you so uncomfortable?”

Dan shakes him off his arm, he really doesn’t want to be touched right now. Even if it’s Phil, who he’s never minded touching before. In fact, he usually finds his touch calming and grounding. Something about the touch this time grates on him, not physically, but there’s something he’s avoiding in his psyche, that he’s purposefully blind to, and Phil’s touch is shining a spotlight on it. Something in Dan knows that he’s supposed to keep it hidden.

“Dan,” Phil’s voice is careful, like how he speaks to scared animals and overwhelmed fans who need gentleness and Dan resents that he’s had to bring it out right now, “are you okay?”

“I’ve been having really bad headaches recently?” Dan says totally without knowing he was going to say it, “and I haven’t been sleeping, like, worse than usual.”

Phil nods and gently places his hand on Dan’s arm again, “is something keeping you up this time?”

“Nothing I can point to,” Dan says and a corner of the Unnamed Hidden Thing comes into the light. Dan almost wants to blink.

“There’s usually something that keeps you from sleeping, right?” Phil asks and Dan knows he’s thinking 2012 when Phan got under Dan’s skin and he’s thinking about Dan’s university freak out and he’s thinking about countless other things that have bothered Dan over the years enough to disrupt his sleep. He’s not wrong. Dan’s cursed with overthinking himself into a sleepless frenzy. It’s how he handles stress and anxiety and even if his methods are not super healthy, that’s his usual routine until Phil catches him and distracts him with anime or animal facts or whatever weird thing he’s gotten into lately.

“Usually,” Dan says.

“So you’re not sleeping and you’re having really bad headaches and you’re mood is all over the place—“

“My mood is not all over the place,” Dan says because his mood has been fine. What is Phil talking about?

“Dan, you got legitimately angry at a Youtube comment yesterday. You haven’t done that since the first year you started making videos.”

“She said you looked like an alien mixed with emo Peter Pan!” Dan says, getting mildly upset thinking about it again, “I couldn’t let that go.”

“Exactly,” Phil says like he’s won the argument, “you would have laughed at that before. I mean, it’s kind of funny.”

“It’s not funny,” Dan argues, “it’s mean and cyber bullying and I don’t like people talking about my friend like that.”

“Thank you, really, I think it’s sweet you want to defend me. But I’ve been able to defend myself since before I met you. And you know that. Which makes this out of character for you. Do you see where I’m coming from?” Phil’s still touching his arm and the Unnamed Hidden Thing is becoming much less hidden and much scarier as a result.

Dan nods.

“I really think you need to see a doctor,” Phil says carefully, like he knows Dan is likely to blow up at him about this.

“A doctor, really?”

Phil ignores his whine and grips his arm tighter, “Yeah. You aren’t sleeping, you’re having headaches, you’re having weird mood swings, and your brain-to-mouth filter has disappeared. There’s too many red flags, Dan. Go to the doctor and get checked out.”

He hesitates. He really doesn’t want to go to the doctor, that involves going outside, taking transportation, having someone poke and prod at him and no real visible symptoms he can point to. The brief reprieve he’s had from the headaches suddenly seems fleeting. Just thinking about it makes him feel the beginnings of another headache.

“I want you to know that I’m listening to what you’re saying, Phil,” he says, using his free hand to rub at his temples like that can scare away the headache sure to follow, “but can we talk about this again tomorrow. I can’t—I can’t deal with any more right now, okay?”

Phil looks at him and reads that he’s genuine. He lifts his hand off Dan’s arm and turns the camera back on, “Alright, but I’m bringing it up again tomorrow and if I need to, I’m making the appointment myself.”

Dan smiles, grateful that Phil dropped it for now and grateful that he cares enough to bring it up in the first place. Mostly he’s grateful he doesn’t have to think about it for a few hours.

“Where’d my hat go?” Phil asks himself as Dan takes some deep breaths.

“You threw it over there in your rush for confrontation,” Dan teases him, needing the seriousness of their conversation to disperse before they have to be lively and funny for the video.

“I wasn’t rushing for confrontation, Mr. Stuck-in-his-own-head. Let’s just play,” he picks the hat up off the floor by bending over awkwardly in his chair and places it on the desk next to him, “and no more weird innuendos about anyone’s butt.”

Dan smirks, “no promises.”

 

 

 

 

It turns out that Phil doesn’t have to wait until the morning to continue the conversation because Dan has a seizure after dinner.

One second he’s sitting on the couch with Dan’s feet in his lap and the next second, Dan’s rolled off the couch and thrashing around and Phil goes from comfy to utterly terrified in the space between heartbeats.

He knows he’s read about what to do if someone has a seizure, he’s seen it on tumblr or something, but he can’t grasp anything coherently with his best friend seizing on the ground in front of him. He falls off the couch as well, screaming his name, and after a split second of hesitation, decides to put one arm over Dan’s legs, trying to keep them as still as possible, and throws his other arm and body over Dan’s to keep him from moving as much as he can. When that doesn’t seem to work much, he has another panic moment before taking a deep breath. He looks around frantically. He sees his phone on the arm of the couch, laughing at him. He feels Dan’s phone under his arm, still snugly in his pocket. Phil fumbles with his friend’s pocket, grabs the phone and dials 999.

They get to the flat very quickly, Phil thinks and remembers resenting the sirens outside the old flat for sounding out every few minutes. He’s glad to hear those sirens now, he’s overjoyed to think that help is close. Phil’s never been this terrified before in his life. He lets the EMTs in and leads them to Dan. It takes a while, Phil’s lost all sense of time, but they stabilize him and get him ready to transport to the hospital. Phil answers questions about what happened and he answers as best as he can, but honestly, he thinks he’s in shock and has no idea what he’s already said.

He follows Dan’s stretcher down to the street and starts to get in the ambulance with him when a middle aged EMT politely stops him.

“Sorry, love, you can’t come in the ambulance with us,” she says kindly.

“What?” Phil says, watching them load Dan into the back, “but that’s my best friend. I need to go with him.”

“You can’t,” she says again, “I’m sorry, but you’re not family so you can’t ride in the ambulance. But you can meet us at the hospital.”

Phil shakes his head a bit, having a hard time concentrating. It’s no use arguing, that’s only going to delay Dan getting to the hospital, and it looks like they’re about ready to go.

“Which hospital?” he asks, trying to find his phone to call a cab.

“St. Bart’s,” she replies, “and maybe grab some things for him. I have a feeling he’ll have to be admitted overnight and he might want some of his own things when he wakes up.”

She steps away, jumps into the passenger side of the ambulance just as the EMTs in with Dan close the door and suddenly the sirens are blaring and Phil’s watching his best friend drive away and he feels like absolute shit that he couldn’t _do_ anything. He couldn’t even ride with him and hold his hand.

Phil takes a second to breathe and quell the panic of the last ten minutes. Has it really only been ten minutes?

“You a’right, mate?” he hears from his right and there’s the neighbor that told him off about trying to befriend the pigeons and suddenly Phil realizes that he’s standing barefoot in the street in just his pajamas, dried tears on his cheeks, and there are people staring at him.

He doesn’t bother to answer. He runs back upstairs, changes into regular clothes. He grabs Dan’s phone, his laptop, charger, some clothes, the book he’s been trying to read the last couple nights, and orders a car. He decides it’s better not to count how many things he’s dropped and had to pick up, his natural clumsiness a dangerous combination with muted panic.

Once he’s safely in the car, Phil calls Dan’s mum to let her know her son is in the hospital. It’s not too late, just past 9:00pm, but they deserve to know.

“Dan, honey?”

“Actually it’s Phil, Mrs. Howell,” he says, one eye on the GPS at the front of the car trying to gauge how far away they are from St. Bart’s.

He hears her confusion, “Phil, what’s going on? Why are you calling from Dan’s phone?”

“Sorry, it’s just the one I had in my hand,” what he means is that he thought she would be more likely to pick up a call from her son then her son’s best friend and flat mate. “I’m not really sure how to, uh, say this… but, uh, Dan had a seizure tonight and had to go to the hospital.”

“Oh my God,” she whispers, “is he okay?”

Phil swallows harshly, “The EMTs say he’s okay, they had him stabilized when he got in the ambulance, but they also said he’d probably have to be admitted.”

“Okay, which hospital?”

“St. Bart’s,” he sees the hospital ahead and breathes out a sigh of relief that he’s close.

“I can be there in two hours,” she says.

“Why don’t you let me see what they say, and if you need to come, I’ll let you know. No need to come out here if they don’t actually admit him. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes, okay? I can see the hospital now,” he gathers his bag of his and Dan’s things and throws the strap over his shoulder, ready to jump out the second the car comes to a complete stop, forgetting momentarily that he needs to pay the driver.

“You didn’t ride with him in the ambulance, Philip?”

“No ma’am,” he’s still upset about it, “they wouldn’t let me because I’m not family.”

Her voice is soft and so lovely when she says, “of course you’re family, dear. Of course you’re family. You’ve been taking care of my boy for years and you’re going to take care of him tonight. I’ll wait for you to call me in twenty minutes and I’ll pack in the meantime in case I need to come. You go see about Daniel and call me when you know something okay?”

He blinks, “I will. Talk to you soon.”

“Bye, love.”

Even if he didn’t remember to pay the driver, the driver so helpfully reminds him with a few choice words that Phil wouldn’t be able to repeat in a video. He shakes his head, like he can clear away the cloud where his brain should be and start thinking clearly, but all he can think about is Dan shaking on the ground, scared and alone and with no knowledge of what happened.

At the reception desk, he asks the nurse for where Dan is and is politely told that he can’t see him but he’s welcome to wait in the waiting area where they have coffee and tea provided. Phil is getting really sick of people telling him he can’t see his best friend, no matter how nice they are about it.

“Will you at least tell me the second I can see him?” he asks hopefully and isn’t buoyed with hope looking at her face.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she says and Phil knows that she means it, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less, “he came through not five minutes ago. No one except immediate family is allowed back until the doctor clears it.”

Phil feels his head drop and he’s looking at the drab hospital tiled floor through very watery eyes. He tries to blink the water away, but he’s not very successful. “Okay, well, I’ll be in the waiting room. Please let me know what’s going on as soon as you can,” he pleads with her, “his mother is waiting on me to call with news, so…” he trails off and even with the kindness in the nurse’s eyes he can’t help but resent her.

He turns away and walks to the Waiting Room and grabs an open chair away from the only other occupant in the room, a man in his thirties with his head in his hands rocking back and forth. Phil’s heart goes out to him.

Twenty minutes go by with absolutely no word from anybody. Phil calls Mrs. Howell to let her know and apologizes that he can’t be of more help.

“Phil,” she says in that reassuring way that mums have, “you’re doing the best you can. Please don’t punish yourself. He knows you love him and that you wouldn’t leave him alone by choice.” The watery eyes make a dramatic return and Phil swallows a lump in his throat. He knows she’s right. Dan _knows_. Dan knows Phil wouldn’t leave him alone. He doesn’t leave him alone at parties, and that’s just social awkwardness. He hasn’t left him alone in years now, really. Dan’s even invited to his family vacations these days because they can’t bear to be apart. Because Dan is family, even if it’s not by the strict definition by societal standards.

“I’m leaving the house now, I’ll be there in two hours,” Mrs. Howell says in his ear, “do what you can until then. And Phil?”

When he speaks, his voice is husky and sounds nothing like he normally does, “Yes?”

“Thank you for everything.”

 

 

 

 

Dan falls asleep after the first round of testing. He vaguely remembers the ambulance ride, remembers hearing the sirens and wondering who got stabbed before he groggily realized the sirens were coming from the outside of the vehicle he was in. He remembers the vague shape of the EMT looking him over and he remembers wondering where Phil was.

He’s not sure how long he stays in the emergency part of A&E but next thing he knows, a very burly man is rolling his bed down the hall and then he has his own room. The doctor comes in and explains that he had a seizure and that they want to do an MRI. He has an irrational thought that he’s glad he didn’t have this seizure in America where he’d have to pay for an MRI before he remembers that the doctor probably needs his permission or something. He nods at the doctor and then they’re rolling him down the hallway again.

He has a flashback to the Manchester hospital and wonders if they’ll give him morphine this time. Then he’s in the MRI machine and honestly it’s one of the creepiest things he’s ever experienced and he wants Phil to tell him he’s being stupid and that it’s fine. He wants Phil to talk about something ridiculous and make ridiculous observations about people like he does sometimes and Dan wants to dramatically roll his eyes at him even though he’s actually very amused and they both know it.

He wants to have his head in Phil’s lap like he’s only allowed when he’s feeling very poorly and have Phil stroke his hair while they watch a re-run of an anime season that they both love.

He wants Phil next to him while he talks to the doctor because he knows that Phil will remember everything the doctor tells them and ask intelligent questions or the not-so-intelligent questions but ones Dan is dying to know, but knows is stupid. He wants Phil to explain what’s happening to him because currently he feels like he’s swimming underwater and everything is distorted and he can’t really breathe.

He falls asleep when they bring him back to his room after the MRI. He’s tired and confused and they might have drugged him, he’s not sure, but he can’t keep his eyes open and he drifts into sleep.

When his eyes open back up, he can tell it’s been hours. He’s on his side staring directly at the wall. The small window in the room has a small amount of light filtering in when he swears before that there wasn’t any. By the light, he can see his mother fretting with the TV remote. He turns over onto his back and bumps into Phil, asleep with his head pillowed on his arms on the unused part of Dan’s hospital bed. A soft smile reaches his face.

“Mum?” he says and his mother jumps a bit.

“Daniel,” she says, putting the remote down and her hand over her heart. The muted TV seems to be stuck on the news, “how are you feeling?”

He has to think about it for a minute, “like I can finally think.”

Phil twists a bit in his sleep and Dan speaks more quietly, “Everything is kind of a blur until right now.”

“Do you know what happened,” his mum asks, walking to the unoccupied side of the bed and putting her hand on his arm.

Dan knows something happened, knows that he wouldn’t have been admitted to the hospital without a good reason. Even though he can’t remember everything, he was definitely in an MRI machine a couple hours ago. But why he’s here? He doesn’t know that.

“No, I—“ he squirms in the bed, trying to get comfortable and his hand winds up on Phil’s arm. He doesn’t move it.

“I remember Phil telling me yesterday that I needed to see a doctor even if he had to schedule the appointment himself,” Dan says, “we had a bit of a row to be honest. It was mostly my fault, I think.”

“But you don’t remember how you ended up here?” She asks, eyes searching his face.

“No,” Dan hates that he doesn’t know, “Mum, what happened?”

“You had a seizure, baby,” her hand come up to move his fringe out of his eyes, “you gave poor Phil quite the scare.”

“A seizure?”

She nods, “Phil said you were watching TV after dinner and then you fell off the couch.”

“Oh,” he says quietly and honestly doesn’t know what to do with that information. Just then, he feels Phil start to stir under his arm. He looks over in time to see him blink awake.

“Hey,” he says dumbly while Phil stares at him.

“Dan,” Phil yawns, “hey.”

When neither of them say anything else, Dan’s mum chuckles on the other side of the bed, “you two are ridiculous. Phil, you spent the entire night demanding to be as close to Dan as possible, even when they wouldn’t let you ride in the ambulance or back in A&E and you’re just going to say ‘hey?’”

Phil shrugs, “Well I’m here now and I didn’t do anything he wouldn’t do for me.”

Dan thinks about it for a second, grateful that his mum told him what Phil’s been through because he knows that Phil would have left that part out or downplayed it.

“I probably would have lied or manipulated a bit more to get to you, but yeah,” he says as he realizes his hand is still on Phil’s arm and slowly brings it away, “thanks for staying and sorry I scared you.”

“Not your fault,” Phil says, yawning again.

This makes Dan yawn as well. He pauses mid-yawn when the door opens and a gray haired man in a white coat walks in with the air of someone who belongs there. Dan has a vague memory of him from the night before and he must be the attending or something.

“Mr. Howell,” he says, grabbing the chart, “you’re awake. Good.”

Dan nods and suddenly feels about eight years old.

“Has your family told you anything about what happened?”

“They told me I had a seizure,” he says and almost adds ‘sir’ to that and is glad he didn’t because he would have been mortified.

The doctor nods, “it’s a little more complicated than that, son,” he says and he has a voice that booms. Like one of those people who thinks they’re whispering when they’re talking at a normal volume, “The seizure was just a symptom and not the big kahuna.”

Phil’s hand sneaks its way into Dan’s and as strange as it is, it’s more comforting than anything else. They’re best friends, sure, and they’re more tactile than a lot of other best friends, but they’ve never just held hands. So while it comforts him, Phil holding his hand also raises his alarm bells because Phil’s pre-emptively comforting him and that can’t be a good thing.

“Then what’s wrong with me?” Dan says and squeezes Phil’s hand.

“Well,” the doctor looks him straight in the eyes and Dan has a bout of panic and his knuckles are white, “Your friend Phil here told us about your mood swings and the headaches and trouble sleeping. So we did an MRI of your brain and, well, there’s a small tumor on your left frontal lobe.”

Dan’s vision whites out for a second and he can’t hear anything past tumor.

“Dan,” Phil says softly and it sounds more like a question, like a ‘are you ready for the doctor to keep going yet?’

He looks over at Phil and sees his own fear in those sharp blue eyes.

“Please go on,” Dan says, “is it…. Is it cancerous?”

Dan’s mum squeezes his other arm and Dan’s so very grateful to be surrounded by the two people who love him most in the world.

“We don’t think so,” the doctor reassures him and, well, at least that’s one good thing, “but if you don’t have it removed in the next month, it’s going to kill you regardless.”

Well, rip that plaster right fucking off then, mate.

“We’ve got you scheduled for surgery in a week’s time. Pre-op is two days before. I’ve given all the information to your family,” the doctor goes on and it’s all Dan can do to comprehend what he’s saying let alone analyze it and let it soak in, “you can go home now, there’s nothing else to do except take the tumor out. You should still experience the same symptoms you were experiencing before until the tumor comes out, but with the medication we’re going to give you, the headaches should decrease in severity.”

Dan nods woodenly.

“Do you have any questions, son?”

“How,” he begins shakily, “how successful is this surgery? Will I be fine afterwards?”

The doctor pauses before answering and that tells Dan all he really needs to know. His mood blackens and he almost doesn’t hear the doctor when he says “the surgery itself is pretty risky. Anytime we poke around the brain it’s considered risky. But the chances of you making a complete recovery should the surgery go well are very high. The surgery itself is the big risk.”

Dan absolutely doesn’t want to have surgery. He imagines himself in the surgical theater, surrounded by doctors in faceless masks saying things like “scalpel, stat” to each other and drilling a hole into the back of his head with the kind of drill Phil’s dad got him for Christmas and Dan shakes his head so hard that he almost gives himself another headache.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the doctor says, “you’re thinking you don’t want to have the surgery at all.”

Dan nods.

“Here’s the thing about that,” the doctor tells him, “your chances of dying without the surgery are 100%. There’s no two ways about it. The tumor is growing at such an exponential rate that it’s going to take over your brain and start impairing your motor function, your ability to see, your ability to breathe. It’s already affecting your judgment and your mood. Do you really want to give this tumor that much power over you?”

Dan shakes his head.

“I know it’s scary, but we’ve scheduled the surgery in a week because that’s when the U.K.’s top neurosurgeon is back in London. You’ll have the best of the best, Mr. Howell, I promise.”

Dan nods again, recognizing that he seems to have lost the ability to speak.

“Thanks, Dr. Reynolds,” Phil says when he sees that Dan’s not going to ask any more questions.

“Of course, and by the way boys,” Dr. Reynolds says, picking the chart back up and walking towards the door, “I loved you guys on the BBC. I’m sorry I had to give you this news.”

Dan smiles shallowly. It’s always nice to meet a fan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A proposal of sorts

That night an exhausted Phil finds himself in front of the TV again. This time the TV is playing an anime almost too quietly to hear and Dan’s not convulsing on the ground in front of the sofa. Instead, his head is in Phil’s lap and he’s allowing Phil to run his fingers through the feathery brown hair like he only does when he’s feeling really sorry for himself. Phil remembers doing this after the Uni freak out. He remembers being in this exact same position every time Dan’s been sick in the last decade.

It’s comforting. Phil wishes Dan would let him do this more often, because as much as it calms Dan and makes him feel better, it comforts Phil just as much. The repetitive motion, the softness under his fingers, feeling Dan under him and knowing he’s alive, it’s almost hypnotizing and Phil knows that there’s a reason why they don’t do this more often, but he can’t think of it when he can feel Dan’s breath on his thigh and the vibration of his throat when he speaks. Not that he speaks much, just to request that Phil turn the volume down, they’re reading subtitles anyway.

This quiet cocoons them and Phil knows that the other shoe has yet to drop. Dan was silent all the way home from the hospital. He kissed his mother goodbye when they got back to the duplex  without saying a word. Phil shared a look with Mrs. Howell that he took to mean _watch our boy and report back to me._ Phil has no intention of disobeying.

As soon as he shut the door behind her, Phil let Dan drag him into the lounge and maneuver himself onto the couch. And they haven’t moved for hours now.

“Can we get pizza for dinner,” Dan asks much later and Phil pulls up his Dominoes app.

“The usual?”

Dan nods against his thigh and puts on the next episode.

There’s not much else to say.

There’s everything else to say.

Phil walks an already sleeping Dan back to his room in the wee hours of the morning and wonders what they’re going to do. What’s _he_ going to do? What if he loses this?  This friendship is more precious than gold, and more enduring than steel.

He realizes he’s taken Dan’s presence in his life for granted, always just known that Dan will be next to him. They make decisions together and do things together because life can be scary on your own, but it’s not so bad with your best friend.

Phil runs his hands through his hair as he normally doesn’t allow himself to do. This is a special occasion, he thinks. He can get away with that and even a glass of whiskey from their alcohol cabinet.

He does both and tries not to cry when he falls asleep.

The next couple of days are beyond hard. There’s not a word in the English language for the right amount of _heavy_. Of tip-toeing around the subject while they’re together and spending hours more than usual apart just to freak out and not scare the other. At least, that’s what Phil’s doing. He’s pretty sure Dan isn’t just surfing Wikipedia for those hours in his room. Then again, who knows these days. Maybe he is.

It’s the worst the night before Dan’s pre-op appointment. Dan leaves after lunch to walk around the city likes he does sometimes when he’s stressed. Phil spends the hours alone obsessively cleaning and when he runs out of things to clean, he responds to business emails for both of them. The need to keep himself occupied he’s felt all week is at its zenith and Phil knows if he stops even for a second, he’ll crumble down to ashes and won’t be able to get up. And Dan is counting on him.

So he waits patiently for Dan to return. When he does come back, it’s with his phone in hand like he just ended a call.

Phil shrugs and asks him if he wants dinner. They watch some throwaway movie they’ve seen a million times and Dan sinks down the couch until his head lands in Phil’s lap.

Phil’s fingers untangle then re-tangle his curls for the next few hours. He memorizes the moment and wishes he really is a cyborg and could download the memory in the years to come, because he can’t remember a time when he was more at peace in the calm before the storm.

This is his patronus memory.

 

 

 

They arrive early to the appointment the next day, both of them getting very little sleep.

Phil wakes up ten minutes before his alarm, unheard of, convinced that they’d missed the entire thing. Yet when he goes to the bathroom to get himself together, Dan’s already standing there brushing his teeth. Phil nods to the kitchen and hopes Dan takes that to mean he would start the coffee.

Dan only grunts in return, his bloodshot eyes telling Phil that he was either up very late, or he might not have slept at all. In the new flat it’s harder to hear Dan stomping around at all hours. That was initially a selling point to Phil, but now he finds he weirdly misses knowing where Dan is. He misses being able to guess his mood and his worry by the pattern he paces.

The tension that crept over the house in the wake of Dan’s diagnosis remains chokingly thick and Phil imagines that it’s only going to get worse in the next two days before the actual surgery. It’s like a living thing, a third unwanted roommate, creeping up their spines and into their lungs, infecting them with worry and dread and all manner of negative thoughts.

Phil punches it back down to focus on Dan when he enters the kitchen. He sees Phil with two mugs out and goes straight for the bowls. Phil loses track of him while he hears the whistling of the coffee machine telling him that the last bit of brew is done. He makes up a coffee for both of them, handing the milk over to Dan for their cereal.

“You good?” Phil knows it’s a stupid question, but he can’t keep it in.

Dan is staring into his cereal bowl and looks up when Phil speaks. He looks like he’s about to brush off Phil’s concern and say he’s fine. Phil’s eyes don’t harden. He’s pretty sure his expression doesn’t change, but Dan reads something off him and changes his mind.

“I’ll be good,” he says and while it’s not a lie, it’s also not exactly what Phil wants to hear.

He takes a big bite of Shreddies, “I’m—“ he starts to say still with the cereal in his mouth and Phil would be disgusted with anyone else, but this is Dan’s house too and they figured out a long time ago that they can’t always be on their best behavior in their own home. So Phil lets it slide because Dan doesn’t even get mad anymore when he sees his socks strewn about everywhere.

“I’m glad you’re going,” Dan says into his cereal, gathering another bite, “to the appointment, I mean.”

Phil has to smile at that, “I can’t imagine sitting around here just waiting to pounce on you for information when you get home.”

“Asking me a billion questions,” Dan adds.

“You might as well let me ask the doctor a billion questions, and then maybe we’ll both feel better,” Phil says and watches Dan’s face fall a bit.

“I’m not going to feel better until they get this fucking thing out of my head,” Dan says.

The words don’t match the light-hearted tone of the earlier conversation and Phil marks a little tally in his head of things that are the tumor and not his best friend Dan.

They take a quiet uber ride to the hospital. Dan goes to check in while Phil takes advantage of the free coffee, no matter that they just drank one. It’s so early. Phil automatically makes a coffee for Dan as well and when he’s done, he looks up to meet him and sees he’s still charming the front desk attendant.

The blonde woman laughs at something Dan’s saying and the dimple is in full effect. Phil picks up the Styrofoam cups and makes his way to the only cluster of two free chairs next to each other. He hopes they don’t have to wait long.

Phil places Dan’s coffee on his chair and when he glances over to check on his progress, both the receptionist and Dan are both looking at him. Dan turns back around, finishes flirting with the woman, and comes to join him.

Something in Phil settles when Dan picks up his coffee and sits down next to him.

“It’s sorted now,” he says, taking a large gulp of his coffee.

Phil’s early morning brain isn’t fully engaged because he has no idea what Dan’s talking about, “what are you talking about?”

Dan inclines his head in the direction of the receptionist, “You can come back with me now,” he says like that wasn’t always the plan.

“I thought I was already coming back with you,” Phil says and really he’s very confused. Who makes appointments this early, anyway?

“Well that was always _our_ plan,” Dan concedes, “but the hospital staff has other ideas of who’s actually allowed back with me.”

Phil’s coffee doesn’t taste as refreshing anymore. He’s kind of over this hospital. He doesn’t even care that it’s featured in Sherlock.

They sit in companionable silence while they wait the ten minutes until the actual appointment time. Phil sees Dan scrolling through Tumblr. Normally he would have reached over to make Phil look at whatever latest meme he’d come across, but today they sit in mutual understanding. The small pit of anxiety that’s been his constant companion since Dan started seizing in front of him swells in his stomach.

He can feel the effects on Dan as well. Neither of them is handling this particularly well, but Dan’s currently doing better than Phil. He calmly stares at the screen of his iPhone, almost serenely, while Phil tries to keep the worst case scenarios out of his head.

Dressed in black at Dan’s funeral. Living in his flat without Dan. Trying to make videos knowing Dan won’t see them.

He honestly has no idea what he’d do if… if…

Shit. He’d done so well these few days not thinking. This has to work.

The surgery has to work. There’s no other option.

Phil does something he hasn’t dared to do in a long, long time. He says a prayer, feeling absolutely ridiculous. But on the off chance that there’s a smidgeon of truth to the whole religion thing and that an Almighty power can keep his best friend by his side, well, Phil’s willing to try anything in the comfort of his own head.

The coffee gone and still five more minutes to go, Phil crushes the Styrofoam cup beneath his hand and shoots it at the nearest bin just for something to distract him for a couple of seconds. He misses of course, and gets up to throw it away properly, grabbing Dan’s now empty cup as well.

He sits back down, his leg nudging Dan’s as he gets comfortable and tries to think about anything but this. He spent all week thinking of video ideas for his channel, the gaming channel, and even Dan’s channel since Dan’s not been firing on all cylinders and needs Phil to make sure it’s a danisnotonfire approved video. Phil was pained to see Dan unable to trust his own judgment.

They filmed back to back, switching shirts so it looks more spaced out. Dan even ran a brush through his hair at one point to make it look differently. They need material for the recovery. Phil’s live show was shorter than ever this week and it took everything in him to keep the sadness off his face. He stuck to his carefully planned script of things to talk about, avoided the questions about Dan, and still ended up cutting out twenty minutes early. He would have slagged off, but he knows that whatever happens next week, he won’t be able to do a live show.

Dan, on the other hand, managed to pull off his own live show very gracefully. Phil’s honestly not sure if the tumor was a help or hindrance to this. Even though it’s still effecting him, the fact that he knows it’s there has helped Dan realize what is and isn’t appropriate Dan-behavior.

Phil listened to Dan’s live show from the other room, ready to find a reason for him to have to leave if he started talking about something strange, but instead he went on a familiar rant about gender identity and societal roles. He seemed more himself than ever and if Phil hadn’t forced Dr. Reynolds to show him the results of the MRI and he saw them for himself, he might have started to doubt there was anything wrong with Dan at all.

It’s dangerous to live that way, in false hope. Dan hasn’t been very effusive with Phil about how he’s handling things, that’s pretty par for the course honestly. He’s the type to hold it all in until it explodes and he gushes his feelings on everything. Phil’s been waiting for the explosion in vain. Now it’s been a week of tip toeing, forcing himself not to think about things, and carefully watching Dan so he can swoop in to help when he’s needed. He’s so hard to predict these days between the tumor and the fact that Phil can’t hear his pacing from his room anymore.

He’s still Dan.

It’s been a long week.

Five minutes must pass because suddenly the door opens and a small woman with handsome dark skin greets Dan by name.

“Mr. Howell, I’m Dr. Richards,” she shakes the hand of a quickly rising Dan.

“Nice to meet you,” Dan says and then gestures to Phil, “this is my— this is Phil. He’ll be coming back with me.”

She sends him a strange look and starts herding them to the door, “alright, right this way then, both of you. Normally, I’d have a nurse bring you back to a room and meet you there, but I was already over here and the nurses are overworked enough.”

Dr. Richards leads them down a hallway with fluorescent lights. Phil puts a hand on Dan’s back to reassure him that he’s following because the hallway is so narrow that they’ve had to go single file to avoid traffic coming on the right.

There’s no small talk on the way to the room and Phil comes to learn that Dr. Richards is a straight shooter. When they reach their room, she leads them in, allows Dan a second to jump up on the patient bed and gets right into it.

“So we need to remove this tumor,” she says as she grabs what is presumably Dan’s chart from an official looking chart holder on the outside of the door.

“Yes ma’am,” Dan says, shifting around on the examining table and Phil knows from experience that it’s awkward because the plastic sticks to you and there’s no back to lean against unless you want to scoot all the way to the wall it’s placed against, but then Dan’s so tall his legs would awkwardly hang off the table.

Phil chooses to stand supportively next to Dan.

“Basically today we just need to get some blood work done, make sure you’re healthy enough to go under anesthesia, and answer any other questions that have come up,” she pulls a smart pair of glasses out of her coat pocket and puts them on and Phil suddenly loves her a whole lot more. She’s like the cutest thing he’s ever seen. This is the best neurosurgeon in the country, she’s going to save his best friend’s life, and she looks adorable in her glasses.

She goes over the surgery in depth, a little too in depth in parts. Phil’s stomach threatens to roll when she describes cutting Dan’s skull open. He has flashes of that show House and the surgeries on there where they literally cut off the skull and remove sections of it like they’re removing a panel. He shivers involuntarily.

“We’ll have to shave your head,” she says and Dan’s response is more subdued than Phil would have thought.

“I hoped not, but I thought you might need to.”

“Some patients prefer to do it themselves. Either way is fine with me. I just need to be able to get to your scalp.”

Once she goes over all the procedures, she asks if they have any questions.

Phil clears his throat, he actually hates to ask this but he has to know, “How successful is this surgery? We know he needs to have it, but how likely is he to have lingering issues afterwards?”

He feels Dan’s hand find his and squeeze and Phil knows he’s thanking him for asking and also trying to support him too. They are each other’s rocks.

Dr. Richards answers them frankly and Phil’s appreciative that she doesn’t bother to sugar coat, “There are any number of things that can go wrong. The brain reacts differently from person to person. That’s part of the reason why some brains grow tumors and most others don’t. Your chances are best with me and I will do my absolute best to bring you out of this alive and fully functional. I hate to say it, but I cannot guarantee this will fix everything. You’re likely to notice changes in yourself, there might be small things that change, preferences or how things taste. You’ll have to have an MRI every year to check for tumors after this. So, this surgery won’t magically fix everything and make it like it was before, but you’ll be alive.”

“How likely is he to die,” Phil says and hates himself immediately.

“Not too likely, but there’s a chance. There’s always a chance when surgery is involved and especially on the brain. Part of the reason for the bloodwork is to minimize those risks and so we can be better prepared if he has a reaction to the anesthesia, etcetera.”

Phil nods solemnly, finding that he’s folding in on himself. Dr. Richards turns her attention back to Dan to see if he has any more questions.  

“You have someone to care for you afterwards, correct?” She says and though she’s speaking to Dan, she turns to look at Phil who is still digesting the conversation.

“Yeah, Phil will take care of me,” Dan says confidently even though he hasn’t asked.

“And he’s family? Because we can’t release you into the care of anyone other than family,” she says, looking over her glasses at them.

Dan inclines his head a little, almost challengingly, “He’ll be family by then.”

“Well congratulations,” Dr. Richards softens, “I’ll have the nurse come take your blood in a couple of minutes and then you’re free to leave. We’ll call you with the results and I’ll see you in a couple of days to get you sorted out.”

“Thank you,” Dan mumbles and Phil’s brain starts to catch up.

He’ll be family by then? They’ve considered each other family for years now, but that’s a strange way of phrasing that sentence. Phil looks over to Dan and sees that he won’t make eye contact with him.

“Why did she say congratulations,” he asks Dan, moving to sit opposite him in the official doctor rolling stool, hoping to force him to look at Phil.

He watches Dan gather himself and it’s almost comical because it reminds Phil of a younger Dan, a Dan who admits to himself and to Phil that he wants to drop out of Uni, a Dan that admits to himself and to Phil that he’s bisexual, a Dan who admits to himself and to Phil that he wants to try making videos. This is Dan about to confront something huge that he’s been avoiding and it has Phil confused and scared. What could Dan be so terrified to admit to Phil? Usually he at least has an idea of where this is going.

“She said congratulations,” Dan begins and looks directly at Phil now with his favorite pair of brown eyes, “because we’re getting married tomorrow.”

What?

 “What do you mean, married?” Phil says, standing up. He can feel himself on the edge. You don’t just tell someone you’re getting married the next day.

“Phil, calm down a second,” Dan says, putting his hand on Phil’s chest, like he’s trying to calm the racing heart beneath it with just his touch.

Phil wants to tug his hair out, “Dan! What? You can’t just say that. We are not getting married!”

“Phil, listen to me. Just listen,” he begs, using his hand on Phil’s chest to make Phil focus in, “Let me explain.”

Fuck him, but Phil calms enough for Dan’s hand to slip from his chest and rub at his own temple, “Look the facts are,” he begins and then takes a huge breath, like he didn’t really think through how this was going to go, “this is a risky surgery, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees. They both heard Dr. Richards. Not exactly reassuring.

“And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Let me get to the end of my reasons and then you can tell me why this is a bad idea, okay?”

Dan’s face is so earnest and Phil is again reminded of the rollercoaster of emotions they’ve been stuck on this last week. Clearly Dan had his own crises while Phil’s been dealing with possibly losing his favorite person in the world.

“Alright,” Phil says because they always listen to each other. Even when they fundamentally disagree, they listen to the other’s point of view. Phil remembers some tense nights while working out details for Tatinof, yet they always came to a compromise.

“Promise?” Dan’s eyes twinkle at him, a moment of cheekiness.

“Promise.”

The twinkle disappears and Dan rips the plaster off, “Worst case scenario, I die.”

“Dan,” Phil reaches out to Dan, not ready for him to say it that explicitly even though he was the one to point blank ask the doctor how likely it is that Dan dies in this surgery.

“Phil, please. You promised,” Dan rebukes him with a slight shake of his head. Then he begins again, all doomsday and Phil’s nightmares, “Worst case scenario, I die.”

Even expecting it, Phil feels his heart thump. But Dan’s still talking, “No, worst case scenario I’m alive but a fucking vegetable. So here’s reason one why I think we should get married—you won’t let that happen. You know that’s my biggest fear. You know because we’ve talked about our fears and dreams and shared our lives for years.”

It’s true. There are fears that are easily digestible, easy to explain and nothing to be embarrassed about. Well, mostly nothing to be embarrassed about. Moths?

A fear of the occult is easy for Dan to explain to the internet, even without believing in the supernatural. People just think it’s a weird quirk and look forward to their Halloween Spooky Week even more to watch Dan fall out of his chair in terror.

Explaining to the internet that your biggest fear is being brain dead is a bit harder. Neither of them ever wants to make any of their audience with disabilities feel like they’re worth less than their healthy viewers. Not that anybody brain dead could actually watch and understand their videos, but it’s a slippery slope. If Dan and Phil say they’re scared of this disability, suddenly as far as the internet goes they are abelists and awful. Phil remembers every face they’ve met for Make a Wish and he knows that they use their videos to escape for a bit and he and Dan never want to take that escape away by stigmatizing the video against those with disabilities or illnesses.

So, yeah, Phil knows that Dan’s actual worst fear is being brain dead and kept alive against his will. He’s probably the only person on the planet that knows.

Phil keeps his promise, and doesn’t say anything. He listens as Dan continues, “Who else is there? My parents? I’m not sure what they’d choose for me if they’re the next of kin. I can see my mum unable to pull that cord. I trust you to know what I would want.

“More than that though—it’s so weird to say this out loud—we never really speak about it… but, Phil, you’re _precious_ to me,” Dan’s eyes go wide and he grabs Phil’s hand. He’s looking up at Phil from his seat on the examining table and Phil agrees that it is a bit strange to hear it out loud. It’s one of those things that he _knows_ and that he expects Dan knows the same about him. They don’t spend hours at a time talking about their relationship, they just live their lives next to each other. Together.

Phil squeezes Dan’s hand, letting him know he agrees without speaking and breaking his promise. Dan continues, that earnestness still shaping his words, “You’re my favorite person in the world. You’re more than my business partner and flat mate. You’re my best friend, but even that doesn’t seem like enough sometimes, you know? And, if I die, I want people to understand why you’re still upset years later. And you will be because I know that’s how I would be if things were reversed. It’s harder to explain your flat mate died and why you’d be so sad about it. So I want this for you too.

“Also, the money—I’d want you to inherit everything,” Dan says very quickly, like this is a bullet point on his list of reasons why Phil Lester should marry Dan Howell and must be mentioned, but is unlikely to win Phil over so he doesn’t want to waste time on it. “We earned all my money together and my half is in the joint bank account anyway.”

He takes a break, still holding Phil’s hand and Phil waits patiently for him to finish. This is the most hand holding Phil’s done in years. He’s surprised to find that he likes it.

“Here’s the really selfish part. I—“ Phil hears the raw emotion in Dan’s voice and knows that this is what Dan’s been working up to. He’s already silently decided that he’ll do it. Hell, right now, he’d do anything Dan asked of him up to and including minor homicide. His thumb strokes Dan’s hand in his, encouraging him to continue.

Dan looks to the floor instead of Phil, like it’s hard for him to get this out, “if I die I’ll have a lot of things I’d never get to experience. I have so many things I have done that other people would put on their bucket list—travel the world, host a radio show, be successful and do what I love for a living, make an impact on the world, but… I’ll never get to have a wedding or be married.”

Now Phil knows why this part is the hardest for Dan to get out. This is the only argument that’s solely for Dan. This is Dan’s wish for himself and not his misguided way to take care of Phil. He’s so selfless when it comes to Phil. Sure, they banter about things because they both enjoy it. Dan teases Phil for eating his cereal and leaving cabinet doors open, but he’s also the loudest voice of support. He’s a second pair of critical eyes on a video that catch something Phil missed. He’s the lock box Phil can whisper his fears to and know they are safe. He’s the hands soothing bruised knees and the provider of hot tea when he’s sick.

He knows how difficult this is for Dan to ask when this is his real reason. Phil’s sure he means the other points he’s made, but his heart, always so close to Dan’s, knows that this is his real reason for asking that Phil marry him.

He doesn’t want to miss out.

“My parents won’t get to see me be married or start a family and do the kids thing, but we can give them a wedding and I can know what it’s like to get married. And you’re the only person I’d trust with that because, well, we’re already partners in so many ways, right? What’s one more? This is something that I really want. My own make-a-wish as selfish as that is.”

“Dan,” Phil says, his voice croaky. He uses the hand not holding Dan’s to wipe the tears out of his eyes.

“Please, Phil. You can think of it as my—”

“Don’t finish that sentence!” Phil’s stomach rolls at the thought. “We aren’t saying that. I can’t think about that.”

Dan chuckles humorlessly, “That’s all I’ve been able to think about, just back and forth in the worst existential crisis of my life.”

“Dan,” Phil says again, unsure what he’s even going to say.

“I’m trying to take care of you, Phil, and this is the only way I know how,” Dan whispers. His eyes are haunted, like the careful façade he’s been cultivating is close to crumbling completely.

Phil knows he’s going to agree, but he still feels the need to be the voice of reason. He’s usually the voice of reason and that’s solely why he feels the need to say, “This whole thing is the tumor talking, Dan.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the tumor or not,” Dan says, like he’s given this thought and is ready to bat away Phil’s arguments, “it’s my reality right now. I want you to have my things when I’m gone. Give my money to charity if you don’t want it or whatever, but I want it to be your choice because I trust you. I trust you more than anyone else in my life, even my family.” His voice goes very soft and quiet and Phil has to lean even closer to hear him when he says, “I want you to be happy.”

They’re so close together now, Phil can count Dan’s eyelashes. He feels the need to point out, “You dead is not going to make me happy.”

“I know,” Dan’s still whispering.

“Do you?” Phil says, “Because it’s hard being the one left behind. I know, I’ve done it before.”

He tries to keep that memory down. That was months of recovery and depression and putting up a front to his viewers and his family that he was okay when he was really not okay. And this is Dan. It’s the same, but so different because it’s _Dan_. “I’ve already said goodbye to a best friend. I can’t… I can’t say goodbye to you. Not you.”

His eyes betray him again and he can feel tears slip down his face. Through them, he can see Dan’s in the same boat. They’re just two laddy lads crying in a public hospital.

“You might not have a choice, Philly. Let me make you as happy as I can before this surgery. We’ll let the cards fall where they may. But let’s be happy before that—let’s have a stupid celebration with our families and eat cake and spend time with them and celebrate being the best of friends for ten years. And when I’m gone… they can’t take me away from you. I’m still yours,” Dan promises him and Phil finds himself nodding.

“Okay,” he says. He tried to be the voice of reason about this. But this is Dan and this is the only thing he’s asked of him, Phil tells himself. Truthfully, Phil ignores the part of him that wants this as well, the part of him that’s excited about this. He feels it bubble up from within and it’s so out of place when all he’s felt for a week is dread, anxiety, and fear.

“Okay?” Dan’s eyes turn hopeful.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Phil says and thankfully the tears are starting to dry up. He uses the hand Dan’s not holding to wipe his eyes and then his sleeve to wipe his nose. He forces himself to say something normal Phil would say, “Let’s get married and have super-secret husband friendship rings and a cake shaped like a rocket ship.”

Dan’s smile is resplendent and the dimples come out. God damn, but the things Phil would do for those dimples. One would think he’d be used to them by now. Dan’s laughing when he replies, “Yes to the rings, but a rocket ship? Really?”

Phil feels the emotional part of the conversation is over and he drops Dan’s hand. He feels them slip into their normal dynamic, “It’s very us.”

“It’s very _you_ , rat,” Dan argues, eyes twinkling again.

“You got your ass stuck in that kid’s ride shaped like a rocket ship that one time,” Phil points out.

“Fine,” Dan says, magnanimously like he’s making a huge sacrifice, “You can have a rocket ship cake if you can find someone to make it on this short of notice.”

“People don’t usually plan their wedding cakes the day before, do they?” Phil wrinkles his nose, just now realizing how difficult it will be to give Dan his perfect day with this little amount of time.

“Except maybe in Vegas,” Dan unhelpfully says.

Phil runs his clammy hand through his hair and then quickly fixes his fringe back to the correct shape, “How’re we going to pull this off, Dan? We have two days before…before.”

Phil isn’t sure about the change in Dan’s smile from genuine delight to sly mischief, “Well, it’s a good thing I’ve been planning all week, isn’t it? Your family arrives tonight, by the way.”

“Dan! You were so sure I’d agree to this ridiculous plan?”

“I hoped,” Dan says and thankfully they’re cut off by the nurse coming in to take Dan’s blood.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have a wedding, some smut, some fluff, and some angst

The moment Phil says yes up to the moment he’s standing by Dan’s side at the altar could safely be categorized as a blur.

They try to hide their giggles as the nurse stabs Dan’s arms a couple times trying to find his vein to draw blood. Dan’s usual histrionics don’t happen because he’s so busy sharing the joke with Phil. The nurse is gone after five minutes and they’re walked back out to the waiting room. Phil can’t stifle his smile so he morphs it into a smirk and chooses to enjoy the feeling of getting one over on the world.

It’s like they made more than a pact to get married, but also chose to put a stopper in the constant anxiety hanging over their heads and throw themselves into the celebration.

On the way home, Dan throws an arm around Phil’s shoulders and neither of them flinch. Phil doesn’t keep half an eye on street for fans and he doesn’t see Dan comb the un-busy streets either. They’re only outside for a block until they catch their uber. No one sees them, but Phil likes to think that he doesn’t care if they do in this moment.

The uber driver with the car that smells like weed drops them off on their block and Phil starts to follow Dan to their front door. Hard to believe he’d been in his pajamas just a couple of nights ago watching Dan leave him in an ambulance. He looks off down the street the way back to Bart’s and stops mid-stride.

Dan, for once noticing that Phil isn’t following him, turns to see Phil standing in the middle of the street and walks back over to him. “What are you staring at?”

Phil grabs Dan’s elbow and starts to pull him in the opposite direction of the duplex, because his courage isn’t quite up to taking his hand on the street. “You promised me, Howell.”

“I promised you a lot of things,” Dan says, slightly out of breath, “which are you referring to this time?”

Phil nods in the direction of the jewelry store he’s always wanted to visit but never had reason to. He has a reason now.

“You said something about super-secret husband friendship rings?”

Dan’s dimples appear on his face again and kick Phil in the stomach. There they go again. “You want to try here first?”

Phil shrugs, “It’s not like we’re conveniently placed by another shop and we do need them on a short timeline. I’m not marrying you without a ring. Don’t be cheap, Daniel.”

“You just want to finally have a reason to visit this shop,” Dan says, totally onto him, “you were supposed to drag Louise here next time she came to visit so you’d have an excuse.”

“Well, now I’ve got you,” Phil says and grabs Dan’s elbow again, finding a satisfaction in dragging him around behind him, like he can keep him close.

There’s always been something about this shop. It’s not like it’s particularly sparkly or flashy. In fact, it’s rather worn down looking. Almost like a pawn shop, it feels like the people that Phil attracts on the subway.

They step into the shop and mutually walk away from each other to browse the selection. Phil looks high and low, knowing that Dan won’t really care if the ring Phil finds for him is grade A perfection, especially as they won’t be wearing them long. Something tickles at Phil though, and he wants to find a ring that Dan will be proud to wear for however long he chooses to. He wants something that Dan the low-key fashionista will be proud to show. He wants something that he can put on another finger and pull off as a Harry Styles-esque accessory. He knows that would appeal to Dan.

It takes him all of thirty minutes. He’s engrossed enough in the offerings that he barely notices Dan make a purchase and walk outside with not one, but two bags in hand.

Finally, though, Phil spots it. The ring. The one ring to rule them all, he sniggers to himself. Well, at least the one ring to rule a Phillip. Seeing Dan outside, Phil quietly asks the sales clerk with the septum piercing if she thinks Dan will like it. She doesn’t exactly agree, but Phil is too excited by the perfect ring, that he doesn’t let it slow him down.

Dan’s smile is beatific when Phil exits the shop and he looks up from his phone. He walks over to him, loops his arm through Dan’s and they safely walk the block to their flat.

Phil’s obsessive stress cleaning from the week before pays off now that he knows they’re expecting both of their families and it’s one less thing to worry about. Phil makes Dan take a nap while they wait for Phil’s family to arrive, and then decides he could use a nap as well. Since both of them slept like shit the night before, sleep comes easily.

They have a peaceful dinner with Phil’s parents and Martyn and Cornelia that night, the family overjoyed to officially bring Dan into their fold, never mind that they hadn’t heard he and Phil were together until the night before. Phil decides on a whim to not tell them, squeezing Dan’s thigh below the table when Dan starts to explain at dinner.

He catches Dan’s eyes and sends him a smile, unsure even himself what he’s trying to say and why, but hoping that Dan, in the way that he does, will somehow get it. Dan’s eyes soften and Phil finds that, yes, Dan picks up whatever message Phil sends and changes the subject to asking after Phil’s parents’ health.

Phil’s mum tears up at the irony, all of them trying to ignore it like they’re trying to ignore Dan’s elephant in the room.

He looks around at the table—they’re sitting in one of their favorite restaurants close by the flat— and Phil, despite the anxiety churning in his gut, no matter that they’re trying to ignore it for now, feels a completion that he’s never felt before. Like he’d been looking at a children’s coloring book with black lines and white spaces and somehow Dan sitting here as his fiancé has filled in the colors and now it’s a real picture.

He almost wishes he’d never felt this at all. It’s going to make things so much worse.

After dinner, Dan and Phil say goodnight to Phil’s family and Martyn takes their parents back to his flat because they need to do a gaming stream. Knowing full well that their subscribers aren’t going to be getting much live content, they decided to do a stream to show them that they are alive and fine. Phil has enough material for both of them, edited and everything, that he can upload a couple of videos for the recovery after the surgery. He keeps telling himself that it’s for Dan’s recovery after the surgery because the other option _isn’t_ an option.

Phil worries that he’s too awkward and that the dynamic shift with Dan and their unusual closeness, even for them, will be apparent to everybody watching. He’s constantly watching his hand placements, the words he’s saying. He’s sure the fans can tell something is off, even if there’s no way they could guess what it is.

All in due time, they’ll know. One way or another, the dark part of Phil’s brain that sounds a lot like Dan says.

Like his own successful live show in the last week, Dan performs admirably. He bants, he outshines Phil on MarioKart. It would be more worrying if he didn’t beat Phil, though.

Phil nudges Dan’s knee under the desk where the shitty webcam can’t see. He means it as a reassurance and when Dan nudges back he feels those emotions folded back to him. They’re a team and just because they’re playing against each other and their subscribers at the moment, doesn’t mean they aren’t both going to win. No attack pact.

Dan’s family rides the early train into the city the next morning, just in time to arrive at the duplex, greet Phil’s family that they haven’t seen in ages—since the Tatinof events. Dan, as his own wedding planner, announces that they have an appointment at the court house at noon. Dan orders everyone into separate cars and they head over. Dan and Phil bring their sparkly suits, both grinning at the idea of getting married in them. It’ll make for some interesting pictures.

Soon enough, Dan’s grandmother is helping him organize and Dan and Phil change into their suits in adjacent stalls in the men’s room.

“This is a working court house,” Phil tells Dan, “of course they don’t have changing rooms for the grooms.”

Dan rolls his eyes and shuffles both of them off to the men’s while leaving his grandmother with strict orders to get everyone into the right room at the right time. There’s only ten of them altogether, so Phil hopes it’s okay that they brought so many people with them.

The bored officiant doesn’t seem to care about the amount of people in the room. He doesn’t seem to care about anything really and doesn’t seem to even use any inflection at all when he begins the ceremony, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join Daniel James Howell and Philip Michael Lester in holy matrimony. They’ve prepared their own vows. Daniel, would you like to begin?”

No lead up, no trite, touching stories about marriage or compromise or anything. He cuts straight to the point and it’s unlike any wedding that Phil has ever been to. Dan takes it in stride and falls right into one of the most beautiful speeches Phil has ever heard.

“Phil, for the first eighteen years of my life I didn’t have a best friend,” he doesn’t look away from Phil while he speaks and all the misgivings Phil had about the ceremony disappear because Dan’s holding both of his hands securely in his own, “but from the moment I saw my first AmazingPhil video—I knew there was someone who would get me. When I finally met you in real life—I was right. We clicked right away and you made me feel like I’d never be lonely again. You’ve been my biggest supporter, my advocate,” his voice catches a bit when he says, “my _partner_ , my favorite person in the entire world, and I love you for that and more. You challenge me to be better than I ever thought I could be and you’re there to pick me up when I fall short. I promise to do the same and to support you. I promise to be your best friend as long as we both live and beyond. I promise that you are safe with me and loved with me. I am proud to stand up here with you and I’m so humbled to be able to call you my husband. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. Thank you for saying yes.”

Dan squeezes his hands and Phil decides that he doesn’t mind his family seeing him cry a bit at his own wedding. He doesn’t acknowledge the officiant as he says, “Philip?” except to start his own vows he’s been thinking about for the last twenty-four hours and, in some ways, the last ten years.

“Dan, there was never a chance I was going to say no when you asked me to marry you and you know it,” he stares into his favorite pair of eyes in the world and sees in them the life they’ve built together, “We’ve spent the last ten years as a unit—since the first time we met in the train station, I would guess. And I love that. I love my name being attached to yours and I love that people think of us as one—because that’s how I’ve always thought of us. Dan and Phil against the world, each other’s biggest fans. Just call me Dan Trash#1.”

He hears small chuckles from their audience and though he’s positive they don’t really get the reference, it’s still funny. He continues, needing Dan to hear the truth as he sees it, “Daniel, you always talk about how I got you into YouTube and how I’m this great person, but you sometimes don’t see you how I see you—this beautiful man with an even more beautiful heart who taught me to care deeply about things, pushed me to do more, pushed me to my limits—a stage show! But never pushed me beyond my limits and when I think that you chose me? It my makes my heart race.”

Dan’s eyes are teary now, he’s always shown more of his emotions, always been at a resting seven on the emotional scale. He breathes out, “Phil,” and Phil loves the way his name sounds on Dan’s tongue. Always has.

“Go on, Dan, feel it,” he takes one of the hands he’s holding and brings it up to the left side of his chest so Dan can feel it pounding, “it belongs to you, after all.” He leaves Dan’s hand on his heart and brings his hand to cup Dan’s cheek, right over the red patch on his jawline.

“You called me ‘precious’ to you when you asked me to marry you and that hits the nail on the head. I love you. You are _precious_ to me,” the next sentence is one of the hardest things he’s ever had to say, but this moment in time is when Dan needs to hear it and Phil can’t imagine not giving him this truth. “I’m going to love you for the rest of my life.”

Without prompting, they bring out the rings that they bought for each other. Phil’s pleased that he hasn’t seen his own and that he’s successfully kept his hidden from Dan. One of the few advantages to a quick wedding, he thinks. Because with more than twenty-four hours’ notice they wouldn’t be able to keep the rings secret from each other. Phil cannot even let a couple hours pass without checking with what Dan’s up to.

Dan uncovers the ring he brought for Phil. It’s gorgeous and exactly to Phil’s taste, not that he’s surprised. Dan knows he’s not a very fashionable man, doesn’t go for accessories beyond his glasses that are medically necessary. Somehow, in that hole in the wall jewelry store, he managed to find a ring like it was customized for Phil specifically. It’s white gold and sleek, there are tiny diamonds or diamond-like gems along the sides. Phil finds it simple but elegant and anything more than that would be too gaudy in his mind.

His smile is wobbly as Dan raises his left hand and places the ring on his finger. It looks like it was meant to be there. He admires it for a short second before he focuses on getting his own ring onto Dan’s hand.

He watches the appreciation bloom in Dan’s eyes. He’s pleased that Dan seems to genuinely like the ring he picked out for him. The one ring to rule the Philip is black metal with black diamonds that manage not to look too much like alien spider eyes but sophisticated and not at all like a wedding band.

The ring itself is definitely something Dan would wear and since he doubts it will bother Dan that it doesn’t look like a traditional wedding band, it doesn’t him. The ring is symbolic, like he’d told Dan when he accepted the ludicrous idea for them to get married. He knows and Dan knows that they just made promises to each other, no matter if they stay married or eventually get divorced like Phil’s assuming Dan will want to, should the surgery go perfectly tomorrow. If they do get divorced, Phil will insist Dan keep the ring. He’ll insist Dan keep the ring that Phil made promises over to love him and nurture him and protect him like the overgrown house plant he sometimes is.

It’s not really about the ring. It’s about their shared life together for the last ten years, and hopefully the many more years they have together albeit in whatever fashion it’ll be.

They’re both basically sobbing by the time the officiant, still unmoved, pronounces them husbands and tells them they can kiss their groom. Phil doesn’t care about the tears or even the traces of snot they’re both producing. He pulls Dan’s face closer to his, and even before their lips touch, he knows he’s never felt closer to anyone in his life. Even when he’s been inside people, he’s never felt as intimately as he does now and they’re just looking at each other.

“Are you going to kiss me or just stare at me some more?” Dan whispers.

“I could stare at you all day,” Phil says back but decides he’d really like to kiss Dan now, because for all of ten years, that’s the one thing they haven’t done. He’s cleaned Dan’s vomit up, multiple times, he’s carried him home after drinking too much. They slept in the same bed for months while touring America and share a bank account when even some married couples don’t do that, but he’s never kissed Dan on the lips.

And this is probably why, Phil thinks when he finally connects their lips, because it’s instantly addicting like a super heroin and he knows that if he’d ever kissed Dan like this, he’d want to do it all the time. And there’s no hiding that.

Dan wanted to get married in case he dies, and Phil can feel his heart physically leaving his body and invading Dan’s.

Dan’s lips are softer than moonlight and Phil wants to sacrifice something to them. He loses himself in the kiss and neither of them stop until Phil’s mum’s polite cough turns into a horribly faked sneeze that brings them out of it.

He dazedly watches Dan blinks his eyes back open. Of course Dan and Phil’s first kiss would be literally at their wedding, Phil thinks. So much of their relationship has been strange and public that of course this first intimacy would be shared by their families and one bored officiant. But at least it wasn’t their entire fan base.

Phil shakes his head like a dog to clear his thoughts and sees Dan lick his lips like he’s trying to taste Phil again. Phil drags himself away from Dan because if he didn’t then he might never be able to separate himself again, and goes over to hug his parents.

Martyn fancies himself the photographer, or maybe Dan designated him that role, Phil’s not really sure how that all went down, but Martyn takes a butt load of photos of everyone in various groups and of the ceremony itself, not that Phil was paying attention to him at the time. Martyn shows him some of the photos on their way back to the duplex. Dan elects to ride with his family since he hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to them. Phil’s happy to have a second away because he’s feeling less and less like he married Dan for Dan’s dream and more and more like he married him because he loves him and wants him by his side forever.

One look at the photos of them at the altar and Phil knows it’s written all over his face there.

“You guys are really in love,” Martyn says, flipping to the next slide, “don’t know how you hid that from me for so long.”

“We weren’t hiding anything,” Phil says truthfully, “you just weren’t looking.”

That feels right.

Dan gobbles down a turkey sandwich and a piece of their Not-Rocket Wedding Cake as soon as they get back to the duplex because he’s not supposed to eat after 2:00pm so his stomach is empty for the surgery. Phil can’t imagine him not eating his own wedding cake, so they’ll cut the cake later and ignore the large chunk missing.

Dan assures him that the cake is amazing and when he sees his mother watching them with stars in her eyes, lets Phil taste the cake from his tongue.

It’s the last semi-private moment they’ve had since putting their suits on earlier in the men’s washroom. Phil’s about to walk back out to his family, but Dan grabs his elbow and pulls him back, a drop of frosting accenting his full lower lip. Phil doesn’t bother to tell him it’s there. He kisses it off.

“Wait, wait,” Dan says, pulling himself back and at the same time, reaching for a strange lump in his pocket. “I got you a wedding present,” he explains.

“Why,” is all Phil can think to ask and Dan opens the velvet box in front of him to reveal a gorgeous chain. It’s tasteful. It doesn’t remind Phil at all of a mob boss or a hip hop star. It’s thin and reminds him of a vine, there’s something vaguely ‘naturey’ about it that he can’t put into words.

“I’ve never gotten so much jewelry before,” he says and watches Dan’s nervous face turn to amusement.

“It’s to keep your ring on when you aren’t wearing it. We both know how you are and we’re likely to have to take them off quite a lot and well, you’re more likely to lose yours,” Dan points out.

Phil doesn’t take offense, “you’re more likely to wear a ring than me, too.” He stares at it a bit longer in the box that Dan is now slightly awkwardly holding up. Phil turns around, putting his back to Dan’s face. “Put it on me, will you?”

He turns his neck just to watch the bewilderment to splash across Dan’s soft features and resort back to the amusement he seems to favor around Phil. “Oh, we’re doing this, then? Yeah, alright, go on.”

Phil turns his head back to face forward and listens to the small clink of the metal when Dan unclasps the chain. He fits it around Phil’s neck and has to concentrate to slip the eye through the loop. Phil can feel his breath on Dan’s neck.

He started this to be funny, make Dan treat him to a typically feminine gesture but his awareness of Dan behind him and the buzz between them turns the joke against him. The joke now is how much Phil wants Dan to kiss him here with no one to watch them.

He doesn’t bother to hope Dan will. He knows the score, he does, truly. So he doesn’t expect the kiss that doesn’t come.

Dan’s hands land on his shoulders and he nuzzles briefly into Phil’s neck and whispers into his ear, “alright, come on. Let’s go back out there husband mine.”

Phil grins, and walks with Dan back out into the lounge, hand in hand.

The caterers are punctual and set up their Wedding Feast in record time. The upstairs lounge is clear of their couch and instead a table large enough to fit the ten of them fills the space. Phil doesn’t recognize the table or the fancy table cloth and utensils that adorn the table formally. Dan must have paid a pretty penny for all this.

He slides into the seat beside Dan in the middle of the table and they dig in. Everybody insists on toasting until Phil’s sure that the champagne is going to his head. Dan raises an imaginary glass and giggles every time he toasts. Phil barely remembers what food they ate even minutes after the table is cleared, but he remembers the cake. He sees Dan look longingly at the cake while everyone else digs in and reaches out to kiss him so he can taste it again. It’s what a good husband would do, he thinks.

After dinner, they retire to the downstairs lounge while the caterers clean up. Luckily, no one expects them to dance, even though Cornelia looks like she’s trying to make that happen. Phil finds himself in conversation with Dan’s grandmother. He’s met her a couple of times when she’s been in town, but he’s never had a chance to chat with her like this. He feels a strange kinship between them. For a staunch Christian lady in her sixties, Phil feels like they have a lot in common. He’s surprised to learn that she watches all of his videos as well, not just Dan’s, and that she has for years.

“But why would you have been watching mine? You barely know me,” he says, actually really confused.

“I knew you were important to Daniel,” she says, “and look how right I was. Now I’m glad I can say I feel like I know you, even though we’ve never had a chance to get to know each other.”

Phil thinks about some of his videos and is thankful, now more than ever, that he doesn’t curse in them. Still, though, there are some questionable things that he’s done on the internet.

“I especially like your series about being a weird kid,” she tells him, patting him on the back of the hand, “Dan and I like to talk about those quite often. You’ll need to do another one soon.”

A bit gob smacked, Phil tells her, “Actually, I’m running out of material there. I did a lot of weird things, but I think I’ve used all the good ones.”

“Well I was a very weird kid. Maybe one day you’ll let me come be in your video and tell you why I was a strange child,” she winks at him and Phil is smitten with the idea and he wants to do it so badly.

“I’ll have to check with Dan,” he says, “I very badly want to have you on my channel telling me the strange things you did as a child, but there will be a lot of people wondering why I have Dan’s grandmother in my video when he’s been so protective of you.”

She smiles knowingly, “Maybe one day when you can share to the world who you are to each other. Or maybe when he finally lets me guest star for an Internet Support Group. The advice he gives is terrible and I think these children need to really hear from an experienced adult. I’ve been begging him for ages, you know.”

Phil didn’t know and tells her the same, “It sounds to me like he’s worried about us knowing each other and ganging up on him. But I’ve come to like you very much, Mrs. Howell, and we really need to have you around for tea.”

“I’d like that very much, Phillip. I’m so glad you’ve made my grandson so happy. He was very lucky when you decided to twitter back to him.”

“Not as lucky as me,” Phil replies and they venture onto safer topics. Phil learns more about Sodoku than he ever needed to know but somehow it’s impossibly charming coming from her.

Later, when the champagne has hit the rest of the family and Martyn and Cornelia are slow dancing in the middle of the room without music, Phil makes his rounds and talks to his father, Dan’s father, Dan’s brother, all of whom are talking about some sport-related thing. Phil gets lost in his own thoughts then, because sports are so boring. He looks around the room and sees Dan sitting with Phil’s mum on the love seat, holding each other’s hands. Phil is almost jealous for an irrational second.

He can’t quite hear them, but he can read his mum’s lips a bit and with what little sound he can hear from them and the familiar way her mouth shapes words, he gets the gist of the conversation. She’s telling Dan how happy she is that they got married. It’s a private conversation and Phil really shouldn’t pry so when he sees her say “My son has loved you for a very long time,” he looks away and wonders how translucent he really is.

They joke about his skin being see-through, but maybe it’s really his heart that’s so clear. Or maybe it’s that he wears it brandished on his sleeve with a big bull’s eye on it. All the better to take aim.

Can everyone really see this thing that he’s just now coming to see himself? How long has he loved Dan? Was anyone ever going to tell him?

Still, this is his wedding day and he just married the love of his life. This was Dan’s idea and Phil’s going to make sure that Dan knows what a loving husband looks and feels like. He’s going to make sure that Dan’s one regret isn’t a regret anymore. He’s going to love Dan until the day that he dies.

 

 

 

 

 

“Do you want to watch an anime,” Dan asks. Their families are gone, the buffer is gone and it’s just he and Phil again. He’s never felt awkward with Phil.

Phil studies him for a moment, his blue eyes x-raying him. He’s wearing his stupid emoji pajama pants and Dan both hates and loves that this version of Phil exists and no one else really gets to see him like this. When Phil doesn’t answer, Dan’s constant low level of anxiety starts to gurgle up. Something in Phil’s demeanor strikes Dan as decidedly _different_. Maybe it’s the way he’s standing, arms akimbo, legs long and fettered by hideous yellow fabric, his head tilted to the side, like he’s considering something.

Or maybe it’s that the air around him has changed. Dan is used to Phil’s presence bringing safety and comfort, occasionally humor when he can be bothered. This Phil, though, is radiating a different feeling and Dan’s not sure how to react. It feels powerful and exquisitely male in a way that doesn’t make sense even in Dan’s head. They’re in uncharted waters. This is the man he’s known for a decade, his best friend. But he’s never seen him like this.

As his husband.

Phil slinks toward the couch, flipping off the TV with the remote, tossing it aside and grabbing Dan’s hand almost in the same movement. He pulls Dan up so that they’re standing mere inches apart and before Dan has a chance to react, he’s pulling gently on his arm, intending to lead him away. Dan’s thunderstruck by how graceful Phil made that look.

“C’mon,” Phil says and turns, still holding Dan’s hand, to drag him out of the room.

“What?” Dan manages to sputter out, but he’s not stopping, he doesn’t put up a fight. His feet follow Phil automatically because he always wants to follow Phil, “What’re you…?”

Phil’s half dragging him now, and it’s clear they’re headed to Dan’s room. He stops in the hall and turns to look Dan straight in the eye, almost too close to his face.

He can feel Phil’s breath on him when he says across the small distance, “I’m going to make love to my new husband,” shivers firework down Dan’s neck and spine and head straight to his dick and it’s not just the words that affect him this deeply, but the simple manner Phil says it, like it’s just a fact that they are about to have sex, something they’ve never done, “and then we are both going to sleep because our lives might change forever tomorrow.”

Phil’s going to give him the full experience, Dan thinks. He’d asked Phil to show him what it felt like to be married and Phil will grant that wish. If this were any other day, he wouldn’t allow this to happen. He’s never needed anybody’s pity and he definitely doesn’t need or want Phil’s, but then again, this might be his last chance and Dan’s aching to be close to Phil, to have him prove how close they are, how Dan has irrevocably impacted Phil’s life the way Phil neatly re-arranged everything about his.

“Our lives already changed today,” Dan says and knows that Phil caught the fact that he didn’t say no to the sex.

“Is this too much change?” Phil reaches across the divide and touches his lips to Dan’s with the gentlest pressure, like he might have only swayed too closely from the champagne with dinner. It’s so soft and full of layers of emotions that Dan almost misses the words Phil had said and—and that’s the Phil that Dan knows, the cautionary man who is so gentle with him and his feelings, always considers Dan’s perspective. This is Phil making sure Dan’s okay with this, the Phil that knows a lack of “no” doesn’t mean “yes.”

“No,” Dan breathes, staring into Phil’s eyes and seeing his desire reflected back, “no I don’t think it is too much change.”

He’s not sure who moves first. It very well could have been him. The feelings were there, boiling under his skin aching for him to let them erupt out. His mouth finds Phil’s and it’s just like the first time he met him in that train station in Manchester. It’s like he’s only seen pixilated versions of him, his voice through a speaker, his thoughts in text form. Kissing him is that first hug, of feeling warm flesh under his fingers and knowing he’s _real._ It’s beyond.

This is going to make it hard to go back, Dan thinks, because Phil’s mouth is every bit as precious as the man it belongs to. It’s every bit as demanding and teasing and fascinating.

They make it to Dan’s room and he honestly has no idea how. All he knows is that his shirt disappeared and the back of his knees are butting up to the side of his unmade bed. Dan thinks it’s unfair that his shirt is gone and Phil is still fully clothed.

With both his hands cupping Phil’s face, he pecks him quickly and pulls back, “take your shirt off,” and it sounds so husky and not at all like himself.

Dan falls backwards onto the bed as Phil reaches down for the bottom of his shirt to pull it up and off, his new necklace sitting prettily on his chest. He makes eye contact and Dan sees that Phil’s pupils are so dilated he can barely see the blue. Dan wants his hands on that immediately.

The shirt comes off tortuously slowly and Dan sits up until his eyes level with Phil’s chest hair. The chest hair always kills him. He wants to rub his nose through it. He wants so many things from Phil, every part of him.

He can feel himself harden fully. He wasn’t trying to hide the bulge in his pajama pants, but seeing Phil standing over him does something for him and he can’t wait any longer.

He reaches for Phil and pulls him on top of him until Phil’s pressing him into the bed and Dan feels like a puzzle piece slots into place. He can’t think about it, so he pulls Phil’s mouth back to his own. Phil’s lips on his feel like heaven and the kiss turns so dirty Dan’s not sure how he hasn’t exploded already, he’s hanging by a thread. Phil moves his mouth against Dan and it’s comfort and understanding and filled with so much love that Dan wants to cry.

Phil’s lips find Dan’s neck, and yeah, it’s just as sensitive as everyone always thought. Phil explores it thoroughly, encouraged by the thrusting of Dan’s hips, until Dan has to pull him off.

“Too sensitive,” he mumbles when Phil looks at him, clearly thinking he did something wrong, “want to feel your mouth other places too.”

“Like what other places,” Phil asks, moving down his body and starting to trek out his collarbones. He spends a couple moments on each until moving farther south, “like perhaps here,” he says, finding Dan’s nipple and flicking it with his tongue.

Dan hopes he understands the whine he makes as an enthusiastic yes. By the smirk on his face and the fact that he goes to torture the other nipple, Dan thinks he gets it.

“More,” Dan says, pushing his hips up and finding Phil just as ready as he is, “want to feel you everywhere.”

“Stop being so impatient,” Phil says, now moving to lick at the top of Dan’s pajama bottoms, “I have plans for you, my dear husband.”

Dan shudders, and his hand sneaks into Phil’s hair. He tries not to think about all the times he’s had his fingers in this hair, when he curled it for Phil in a video, when they would fix each other’s fringe backstage at Tatinof because there was no time to check their own, when he would bring Phil with him to the barber and try to explain that he wanted this exact hair style.

“I’m going to suck your cock,” Phil says and Dan keens. He can barely look down at Phil over him, slowly pulling his trousers and pants down.

His dick springs free and before he has a second to wonder if he should be self-conscious, Phil’s licking the tip. It feels so wonderful and Dan doesn’t think it’s ever felt this good with anybody and Phil’s only gotten started.

Phil’s eyes lock on his and Dan sees something new that’s he’s never seen there before and if he wasn’t lying down already, he might fall over. Phil Lester can be sexy as fuck and his eyes dance with mischief and he then learns that Phil Lester is also the world’s biggest tease.

He tortures Dan with his mouth, never quite allowing him to get fully there and learning all the secret places that drive Dan the most wild. Dan has his left hand in Phil’s hair, careful not to guide him or force him, just a way to ground himself and remind him that this is Phil doing this to him because he can’t keep his eyes open very long. Dan has his other hand tangled in the sheets, squeezing them until his knuckles whiten.

“Alright Dan,” Phil says when he comes up for air, “I’m going to make you come now and then I’m going to fuck you.”

Dan’s all for this straightforward and sexy Phil.

Phil swallows him to the hilt and Dan’s eyes roll back into his head and everything whites out and he’s coming after balancing on the edge for so long. Phil sucks him through it while Dan pants, with no idea what sorts of sounds he might have been making. He knows he’s usually loud in bed and suddenly he’s very thankful that Martyn insisted that Phil’s parents should stay at his place. No one needs to hear the noises Dan’s sure he just made.

After what feels like hours, Dan opens his eyes and sees Phil’s head resting on his chest. He’s absent-mindedly drawing circles over his heart and Dan swears he feels it skip a beat.

“Mine belongs to you, too, you know,” he mutters, thankful that the dark hides his face from Phil because even with the surgery on the horizon he’s not sure it’s something he could say to Phil’s face. But thinking for a second that Phil won’t know how important he is, that’s worth doing things that terrify Dan. Phil’s always making him do things that terrify him for the right reasons.

“I know,” Phil says and climbs up Dan’s body to kiss him. This kiss, though just as intense, sweeps through Dan like a sandstorm, kicking up thousands of pieces that make up Dan and scrambling them with the evidence that Phil was here.

Whatever piece of his heart that didn’t beat solely for Phil Lester changes its tune and Dan knows that he’s fucked.

They kiss for a long time, until Dan starts to get impatient.

“The blowjob was great, Phil, but I believe you made a promise,” he says as he pulls away from Phil to turn over to his nightstand drawer.

“No, don’t move, I’ll get the lube,” Phil says, “it’s still in your nightstand drawer, right?”

Phil leans over as far as he can without un-straddling Dan and manages to open the drawer. Dan memorizes the sight, “I suppose I should be embarrassed that you know where I keep my lube, but it’s coming in handy right now, so.”

“No shame, Daniel,” Phil says as he grabs the lube, “a man has needs.”

“Right now I need you, so please get the lube open.”

Phil returns to him, kisses him gently on the nose and opens the lube.

“You sure about this,” he asks, and Dan looks at him trying to take the entire moment in, trying desperately to memorize every nuance of this moment from the scratchy sheets under him to the feel of Phil’s body atop his, making him feel small for once in his life.

Dan reaches up to kiss Phil again, “beyond sure.”

“Okay good,” Phil says, bringing his hand down to Dan’s entrance, “because I was going to be very sad and very horny if you said no.”

Dan laughs gently even as he feels Phil start to open him up and something compels him to tell the truth, “I can never say no to you, you know that.”

Phil kisses him as he continues to move his fingers and Dan luxuriates in the stretch. It’s been so long since he had anybody else do this and he almost forgot how fucking good it feels. He quickly urges Phil to add another finger.

His neck shivers under Phil’s tongue and two fingers suddenly become three and Dan’s so beyond ready for Phil, so ready for Phil to be inside him.

“C’mon, fuck me,” Dan says, his voice unrecognizable with how husky it sounds, “I’m ready, please.”

“As my husband demands,” Phil says and Dan can _feel_ his cock at his entrance and his eyes roll back into his head. Why the fuck is Phil going so slowly? He needs this.

“Your husband demands that you actually fuck him,” he says and grabs Phil’s hips to pull him forward until he’s bottomed out and Dan moans.

Phil’s breath comes quickly and Dan can barely focus on it over his own pleasure, “Shit, Dan, you’re going to make this not last very long.”

“Move,” Dan orders, not bothering to answer Phil, “please move, I want to feel you.”

“Shit,” Phil says again, “God, you feel so good. So hot. You’re so hot, Dan,” Phil says as his hips start to move, slowly at first until he finds a good rhythm.

Dan’s flying high as a kite right now. He’s glad they’ve waited until the day before he might die to actually do this because Phil might just send him into death’s sweet embrace with his dicking.

Dan rolls his hips as hard as he can and Phil’s so reactive, so in tune with him, that he meets him and they’re dancing. They’re dancing like they’ve done so many times, for videos, for the Brits, for their stage show, just to make each other laugh, but this dance is so primitive, it’s not a fad and it’s not on the x-box and it can’t be found in the arms of just anyone. It’s not sex, Dan thinks as Phil’s hips thrust harder and harder and Dan has never felt so close to anyone in his life, it’s love-making. They’re making love and the realization hits Dan just as he’s coming.

After a quick clean up, they settle back into the bed, avoiding the wet spot. Dan knows he’s not getting any sleep tonight, but he’s glad to have Phil close. He nuzzles into Phil’s hair and thinks that he’s going to milk this for all he can. If they only have tonight, then he’s going to get the mind blowing world stopping sex and he’s going to get lazy husband cuddles.

With a glance at Phil, Dan can tell that he’s nowhere close to getting to sleep either. Phil’s got the look on his face that he’s thinking and Dan knows that if he’s patient for a couple of minutes, Phil will open up. Sure, enough, after a moment or two, he’s rewarded.

“You have to come back, Dan. Please promise me you’ll come back,” Phil says into the silence. Dan feels his lips move on his chest where Phil’s resting his head. He’s asking for the impossible, they both know it.

“I’m not going to war, Phil,” he says, trying humor as a coping method.

Phil bites at his chest, “Don’t joke,” he noses at the spot he just bit, like an apology. “Not about this.”

“I don’t have much say in it,” Dan reminds him, rubbing his hand along Phil’s side as soothingly as he knows how, “Someone else is doing all the hard parts.”

Phil won’t budge. He lifts himself up and off Dan’s chest until they are nose to nose and says “Promise me.”

“I can’t promise you I’ll come back,” he says because he can’t lie, not to Phil, he presses a kiss to Phil’s nose, “but I can promise you this—any decision you make for me is going to be the right decision and exactly what I would have chosen for myself. There will be no blame for whatever decisions you have to make.”

Dan is worried about the surgery. He’s worried about not being _himself_ afterwards. He’s worried about dying on the table and not making it to another birthday, but none of those things hold a candle to how he’s worrying about Phil. He already takes so much onto himself. If Dan passes into the black void of death like he’s joked about so many times, the only real regret he’ll have is that he had to leave Phil behind. He can give him this, he can give him absolution. Dan wouldn’t be able to rest peacefully if Phil was down here on earth blaming himself for everything.

“I mean, I’ll haunt your ass, but lovingly… like Casper,” Phil shakes his head and puts it back on Dan’s chest, over his heart, like he needs to listen and make sure it’s still beating. Dan hopes he can’t hear it almost breaking. “Phil, your family loves you. My family loves you. They know what we mean to each other. Should the worst happen, you’ll have them to support you and help you. You have our friends—they might not know we got married, but they know how close we are. They’ll help. Tell them whatever you want about us. Tell them the truth or that we were together for years, whatever makes it easier for you. You just have to promise me you’ll go on and keep living life.”

He can feel Phil smile and something tells Dan’s it’s not his real smile, “Won’t make me a simple promise but trying to get me to make promises? I see how it is, Howell.”

Dan squeezes Phil’s side and he huffs out a laugh that sounds wrong.

“When I see you again in fifty years we’ll pick up our friendship and I’ll have fifty years of things to tease you properly about,” Dan says into Phil’s hair, taking in the smell that’s so Phil and smiling to himself.

“Well we did pledge ourselves to each other in front of the Lord. Guess that means we get to see each other in the afterlife,” Phil crawls up his chest to put an arm on either side of Dan’s head. When he allows his hips to drop onto Dan’s, he understands.

 

 

 

 

If the wedding feast yesterday was jovial and celebratory and full of joy, then breakfast the next morning is the exact opposite, Phil thinks.

His family is over at the crack of dawn with breakfast in tow. He and Dan barely have time to get out of bed and dressed to greet them, let alone be embarrassed about the amazing sex they had hours before. He saw parts of Dan he’s never seen before and it’s almost worse that they’ve done this now, because Phil knows he’s going to crave Dan for the rest of his life.

He can hear his mother in the kitchen already laying out the food and calling up to him. Phil shoots Dan a conspiratory smile as they both struggle into pants. 

Dan laughs out loud, “my legs are so sore, oh my God,” Phil watches him bend over to pick up his pajama bottoms and flinch, “oh, other things are sore too.”

Phil sniggers into the clean shirt he found in Dan’s shirt drawer and throws one over to Dan as well, “C’mon, sugarplum, your family won’t be far behind.”

The mood of the room breaks the bubble Dan and Phil had existed in for their wedding night. The sight of his brother’s serious face and his father stirring his coffee about thirty times more than necessary brings reality crashing around them. Phil can practically feel the curtain fall around Dan and it’s like a cloud materializes above his head. Phil goes to join his father and Martyn at the table, seeing his mother already making herself at home in their kitchen and knowing that being able to take care of everything for breakfast is going to keep her busy and from thinking about things. Phil pulls Dan into his lap, since they only have so many chairs.

Sure enough, Dan’s parents, grandmother, and brother let themselves in a couple minutes later. No one openly discusses the surgery, and everything that really needed to be said was said last night. Which just leaves the overwhelming feeling of the unknown. There are so many ways this can go, Phil knows, and the uncertainty is what he’s struggling with the most.

Everyone finds a way to touch Dan and though this would normally drive him crazy, Phil sees him lean into his mother’s hand on his neck as she gets up to get a glass of juice. Martyn punches him in the arm a bit too hard and Dan’s father ruffles his hair at one point.

Dan’s beautiful, beautiful curls. It’s going to be weird to see him without those curls. Phil’s always admired his hair, even when he straightened it for years and wouldn’t listen when Phil told him he should just let the curls out. Phil was one of the few who would catch him after his shower but before he’d straightened it, or on a lazy day when they didn’t have any plans to be anywhere or anyone to impress.

Phil rubs his nose into Dan’s hair, kissing his ear with the lightest of touches. He can be as sappy as he wants, this is his husband and no one here knows that their relationship isn’t actually that of husbands.

Phil can’t eat the pancakes his mother put in front of him and Dan’s not allowed to eat anything because of the surgery, so Phil distracts himself by finding Dan’s left hand with his own left hand and playing with their rings. The black gold ring on Dan’s finger matches him perfectly and Phil waits until no one is looking at them to bring Dan’s hand to his lips and kiss his finger.

Internally, Phil’s at war with himself. He’s trying desperately not to think that this might be his last interaction with Dan, last precious hours where he’s still whole and complete. Half of him is trying to pretend that this is just a normal meal, but the other half knows that if this is his last day with Dan, he needs to make it count. He needs to make sure Dan knows he’s loved.

He kisses Dan’s hand again and this time doesn’t wait to see if anybody is watching. He feels a reassuring squeeze back.

Everyone finishes their breakfasts and Phil has no recollection of any conversation going on around them. He thinks his brother may have tried to talk about work or something to distract everyone, but Phil is only processing the weight of Dan in his lap, the smell of Dan’s hair in his nose, and the ache in his heart.

Too soon, Dan’s mum is telling them that it’s time to go. Everyone gathers around Dan in the cheesiest group hug of all time, but Phil finds a small sliver of peace in it and Dan’s words from last night come back to him—that he can lean on their families should the worst happen. Not only his family, but Dan’s as well because Dan’s family is his family now.

Then they’re in a car on their way to the hospital and Phil’s hand is in Dan’s hair without him consciously putting it there, like his hand has a mind of its own and knows that it won’t be able to do this anymore. Phil’s hand will miss the feeling.

At the hospital, they have him change into the hospital gown and a nurse comes in with clippers. Phil suspects that this part makes the surgery final to Dan. That the idea of a surgeon drilling into his head to remove a cluster of nefarious cells is this abstract thing, he won’t be awake during it and it’s a bit like the card game War. You flip your card over and you either win or you lose, there’s no skill involved only luck. When the nurse finishes whatever small talk she’s trying to make and turns the clippers on, Phil watches Dan and feels the other shoe drop.

It’s real to him now and as she moves steadily over his head and clumps of brown waves fall to the floor like the saddest snowfall Phil’s ever experienced, he sees the reality settle in Dan.

They’re holding hands again because Phil’s starting to feel like he’s not real himself without Dan’s hand in his and Phil talks about inane things to distract Dan who knows exactly what he’s doing. Phil’s breaking out the animal facts when the nurse finishes with the clippers and then starts in with a razor.

He watches her clinically remove the stubble from Dan’s head until he’s basically unrecognizable. As serious as this moment is, and even with the crevice cracking in his chest, Phil can’t help but chuckle.

Dan pouts and for a small moment they escape the situation together and they’re just Dan and Phil with mad bants.

“What? Does it really look that bad,” Dan asks and Phil thinks he should probably lie and say that he looks fine, but Dan looks really, really stupid.

“Yeah, it does,” but he rubs his thumb along Dan’s hand to lessen the blow.

The pout deepens, “You’re supposed to say that I look like a more handsome Professor Xavier or like the Rock or something.”

“But that would be lying and I promised in front of God and everyone not to lie to you,” Phil replies, catching the twinkle in Dan’s now way more prominent eyes.

“World’s worst husband,” Dan says.

“Take it back!” Phil says, “It’s not my fault you don’t have the head shape to be bald.”

“Oh and you do?”

“I never said I do, there’s a reason I still have the emo fringe. I know what works for me.”

“Yeah it’s been working for you for as long as I’ve known you.”

“Hey, it got pretty boys to internet stalk me, didn’t it?”

“Actually shut up.”

“Hey,” Phil says, bringing his unoccupied hand up to cup Dan’s cheek, “I’m really glad you’re my best friend. You’re my favorite person in the world, don’t know if you knew that or not.”

Dan smiles, but the apprehension doesn’t quite leave his eyes, “I did know. I’m glad you’re my best friend. And I’m glad you’re here with me now. There’s no one else I would want next to me. You’re my family and I am so, so thankful I met you. I’m glad yours is the last face I might ever see.”

Dan’s hand finds Phil’s, still resting on his cheek, and squeezes. He turns his face into the palm and kisses it. Phil struggles to see it happen through the tears in his eyes.

“I really love you,” he says, desperate to make sure that Dan _knows_. He pulls him forward to place a kiss on those lips that have always driven him crazy. “Please come back. Please don’t leave me.”

“Love you too,” Dan says, and then the nurse wheels his hospital bed away with a regretful look in her eyes. Phil only watches Dan disappear down the hall, taking his entire heart with him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a baby chapter. Next one coming soon!

This time when Dan wakes in a hospital room, it’s with a strong sense of déjà vu in his stomach—there’s light filtering through the window in front of his eyes, there’s a vase of sunflowers, somebody’s idea of a joke, and there’s a hand in his that he intrinsically knows belongs to Phil, even before he turns his head to see him asleep in the chair next to the bed, his neck at an awful angle.

There’s a little cloud in his brain, but it’s breaking up quickly. Like the internet likes to joke, Phil’s literal sunshine breaks the clouds apart until it’s suddenly clear skies.

He knows where he is.

He knows who he is.

He breathes a deep breath of release, in the through the nostrils and out the by the tonsils and it’s like he’s being un-stoned. Like he’s a backwards clip of the stoning of one of the Salem witches of old, the stones flying from her body and back into the crowds’ hands. He feels the stones fly off him and he’s free.

His body still feels a bit like it’s under stones, though. His muscles hurt and his head has an ache in it that he doesn’t think will go away without some medication. It pains him to look around the room, but he takes a moment to himself. Soon enough the doctors will come in and want to check him and he needs the moment between breaths to center himself again.

Dan squeezes Phil’s hand, because Phil’s never counted as “people.” Phil’s never been a leech on his energy, he bolsters it. Being alone with Phil is just as good, if not better, than being by himself.

The pressure of his hand wakes Phil who jumps up suddenly, studying Dan’s face with a scrutiny that’s almost painful to Dan. It’s like he’s looking at a statue on the street, waiting to see if it’s actually a man in grey body paint, about to pounce on him and scare him.

“Hey,” Dan says around a throat full of glass. Jesus, has he had any water in… well, however long he’s been under? “You look pretty bad, mate.”

That’s not a lie. Phil looks like he’s been through the ringer. His hair is greasy and unkempt, which is wildly out of character for a Phil in public. His eyes have deep rings under them and his skin is sickeningly pale.

Phil blinks.

“You look awake,” he says.

Dan watches Phil’s brain whorl. He looks apprehensive, a bit timid, much like he did when they were learning the choreography to Tatinof. Like he’s on uneven ground. Just as he was then, Dan’s patient with him. “I am awake,” he says carefully.

“Do you know who I am?” Phil asks and Dan would bet every pound he’s ever made that Phil is holding his breath.

He considers playing a joke. Just for a moment, he thinks about tilting his head, adding a squint to his eyes like he can’t quite pinpoint him. Four weeks ago, he would have. A month ago, it would be the funniest thing ever. Now, though, Dan looks at his best friend, the man he loves, and he sees his fear and there’s nothing funny about that fear.

There’s nothing funny about watching a man who’s waiting to see if his life is over.

“Yeah, Phil,” he squeezes his hand again, harder and with as much reassurance as he can muster, “you’re my best friend.”

Phil’s smile lights up the room. Seconds later, a nurse walks in and then the circus starts.

They make Phil leave the room. Even husbands aren’t allowed to stay, Dr. Richards says, but he’s allowed to come back after the cognitive tests are done.

Phil gives him meaningful eye contact and one last squeeze of the hand, and then leaves the room. Dan knows he’s going to call both of their families and give the news that he’s awake.

“He’s a good one, your husband,” Dr. Richards says after they’re done with a bajillion tests and even more questions, bloody endless questions.

“He’s the best,” Dan says, voice still hoarse after the questions but now soothed a bit from the glass of water on the bedside table.

“He rarely left your side. I thought he was going to have a nervous breakdown and land himself in the bed next to you.”

Dan’s head twitches unconsciously and he regrets the motion almost immediately, the wound throbbing in his scalp. There’s something there he tries to grab, and it escapes him.

“Dr. Richards,” Dan starts, trying to put his question fully into words and coming up with a blank.

She looks over her glasses at him, waiting for him to get to his point. She must have a lot of patience with post-brain surgery patients.

“How long was I out? You make it sound like it was longer than expected.”

Her eyes widen, “Oh, I thought Phil would have told you.”

“Tell me what?”

“There was a minor complication and he had to make a hard decision,” she says and then goes into the medicine part which goes completely over Dan’s head, tumor or no tumor, and ends by saying, “in the end, he decided to have you put in a coma for a couple days to give you the best chance of recovering. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for five days now. You slept a bit longer than expected and everyone was very worried. That’s why he looks so haggard.”

Oh shit. Classic Dan oversleeping. No wonder Phil looks like he does. Dan bets he hadn’t left the hospital since the surgery, that he hadn’t slept in a bed since the morning they woke up together after their wedding.

“It seemed to work out okay,” he says and Dr. Richards chuckles softly.

“You and I know that, but he might not know that. Let’s call him back in and go over the results of these tests, okay? Then you need more sleep.”

She walks to the door and gestures outside and seconds later Phil materializes at his side. Phil takes his place in the chair beside Dan’s bed. He looks between Dan and Dr. Richards expectantly, like they’re keeping secrets from him.

“Relax, Phil,” Dan says and he would squeeze his hand like they’ve been doing to communicate these days, but his hands are clenched in his lap and Dan can’t reach. He tries to calm him with just his voice and his eyes, but Phil has already worked himself up.

“Really, Mr. Lester,” Dr. Richards says, echoing Dan, “It’s not as bad as all that. In fact, let me set your mind at ease. Dan’s initial tests look fine. Great, even. There’s little to no impairment on his motor functions and his cognitive abilities seem to be the same, if not better, than they were before. We’ll still need an MRI in a week or two and a follow up appointment for more tests, but he’s out of the woods for now and everything seems to be in order.”

Phil’s smile spreads slowly across his face like he just can’t quite believe it. His hand starts to reach for Dan’s and Dan eagerly reaches for it.

“You might notice some changes in preferences,” Dr. Richards continues, “he might like foods he didn’t before, he might decide he hates how cotton feels on his skin. The tumor might have affected recent tastes and they’ve reverted to how they were before, but then again it might have irrevocably changed some things. He might even be completely normal, it’s too early to tell. But, for now, the tumor is gone and his memory and functions are optimal so we’re counting it as a win.”

Phil’s hand never quite makes it to Dan’s.

“We’re going to keep him overnight and then release him tomorrow morning and you guys can go home.”

Dan can hardly believe how well this is going. For such a large thing hanging above their heads, he expected some kind of side effect, some kind of catch. He knew before the surgery, that if he made it through, there would be consequences and he and Phil would need to re-learn their world with those consequences in play.

It seems, however, that Dr. Richards is telling them that things are fine. And something about that does not compute to Dan. Could they really be free? Just like that?

Dan looks over at Phil to see if he is on the same page. Phil looks lost in thought. Neither of them really notice Dr. Richards leave the room.

“Phil,” Dan says and he’s not even really sure what he’s trying to say. The name just falls off his lips.

Phil jerks out of his reverie and looks at Dan for the first time since he came back in the room. He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s probably beyond tired, Dan thinks, but he’s so glad he’s here.

“This is great news,” Phil says tentatively and at odds with his words.

“I know, I—“ Dan cuts himself off, unsure where he’s standing with Phil for the first time in years and unsure how to find his footing.

“Here,” Phil says, pulling the chain Dan got him from around his neck. He pulls off the black gold ring that Dan recognizes as his own and hands it over the gulf between them.

Dan takes it from Phil and puts it on his finger. He’ll have to remember to move it tomorrow when he’s released. But until then, no matter how weird Phil’s being, he’s going to wear his wedding ring.

Phil replaces the chain around his neck and Dan spots the ring he picked out for Phil still on the chain.

“Um,” Phil says and Dan wants to blow torch this awkwardness between them. “You should probably tweet that you’re okay.” His face turns sheepish, “I may have had a freak out yesterday and asked our audience to send you good vibes because you were sick. They already knew something was wrong when I canceled both your lives shows and mine for the last week and a half.”

Something in Dan sinks when Phil goes straight to business, but he gets it. Whatever is going on here, it’s easier to settle into business as normal, managing their combined brand, their image. Dan’s determined to get to the bottom of whatever is wrong with his best friend, but he’ll play the game for now.

“Do you have my phone,” he asks, “I can tweet now and get it over with.”

Phil hesitates before thrusting his hand into the pocket of his trousers, “There um… there might be some questionable things on twitter.”

Dan feels his face morph into confusion because first of all, there are always questionable things on twitter, tumblr, Instagram, you name it. That’s the way of the internet and fandom in general. The fact that Phil feels the need to warn him about it worries him the most.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dan blurts out, because he’s always been sensitive, “You’re acting weird.”

Phil flushes, the circles around his eyes all the more prominent, and Dan feels a smidgeon of guilt as he’s reminded that Phil is literally exhausted and at the end of his rope.

“Never mind,” Dan says before Phil can answer, “Don’t answer that. I can see you’re exhausted. Go home and get some sleep.”

Phil opens his mouth, no doubt to protest, but Dan’s having none of it, “No, I’ve got my phone,” he waggles it in Phil’s face, “Just leave me the charger and I’ll be fine for a couple of hours. I’m sure my mum and grandma are dying to come see me. So go home and get some rest and let them take over. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re going to be fine. I can handle facing social media and doing some damage control. You are clearly about to keel over.”

“Yeah, okay,” Phil says, “I’ll leave the charger with your mum. Just,” he rubs both temples with one hand, “just remember when you see the stuff online that I wasn’t sure you were going to make it, and it was going to be my fault because I made the decision.”

“It wouldn’t have been your fault, Phil,” Dan says and wishes he could hold Phil’s hand. When did he get so addicted to the feeling of someone else’s hand in his? “All this was the tumor’s fault and I told you that night that I would never blame you for whatever decision you made.”

Phil continues to rub his temples and Dan knows he’s avoiding looking at Dan.

“Look how it turned out,” Dan says, “I’m alive and well. And that’s down to your decision. Don’t ever blame yourself. I don’t blame you. I guess I don’t know what’s going on online, but I’m not going to get upset or mad at you because you said questionable things when you were vulnerable. So, please calm down and go get some rest.”

Phil finally looks at him and Dan’s bowled over. The weight of his stare paralyzes Dan. Slowly, Phil nods. Dan recognizes an argument won.

“Okay. You’re right. I’ll be back before you’re released tomorrow morning,” Phil stands up, kisses Dan on the forehead after a slight pause then says, “you still look ridiculous with no hair.”

He doesn’t allow Dan to respond, already out the door.

Dan spends the next thirty minutes assuring his mother that he’s fine, no really, the doctor said so, didn’t you ask her? Dan’s mum is salty that Dr. Richards won’t tell her anything, just Phil.

“He’s my husband, Mum,” Dan points out and only a small smile crosses his face that he can say that and to his mum it’s even the truth.

His grandma catches him, “he is, dear, you can say it as much as you want, you know.”  
Dan hides his blush in his phone.

Phil’s right about the internet being a shit storm. It takes him ten minutes and a lot of patience to track the beginning of the storm to a tweet from Phil two days ago.

“I don’t usually do this but I’ve been awake for 52 hours. Dan’s in the hospital. Please send good thoughts/prayers and I’ll update you when I can.”

Dan can see why Phil felt so strangely about the tweet and why he thought Dan might be mad about it. Because that tweet is completely Phil and not at all AmazingPhil. That tweet is from a desperate man and it shows more emotion than Phil has ever shared publicly before. It hints at the layers between them, the strength of their bond and the depths of their love for each other. One strange encounter with a panicking Phil doesn’t make Dan doubt that Phil loves him. But it’s not something they advertise to their subscribers.

So the internet is doubly freaking out. Firstly, because Dan’s in the hospital and none of them know anything. He sees threads of fans trying to figure out which hospital he’s in and nopes the hell out of that. They’re also madly analyzing the tweet Phil sent, his emotions, his mental state, his plea. It’s so out of character for the Phil that they know. To Dan, who knows the lengths Phil goes to for his friends and family, it’s only out of character in that he’s showing people.

Dan’s fingers twitch with the need to start putting their audience at ease. He debates for a minute on what he should say and comes to split decision:

“you guys phil left me alone with my mum and grandma to ‘sleep’ and they are going to smother me to death sned halp.”

He follows it up with another tweet, “seriously though im fine and i’ll explain in my live show this week thank you for the well wishes and please quit asking what hospital i’m in.”

After he tackles twitter, he replies to a couple friends who texted him, letting them know he’s okay and will explain shortly, but it’s too long to explain over messenger.

The rest of the day he devotes to his family. He calls Kath to reassure her that he’s okay, not surprised to learn that Phil had already called her. She thanks him for sending Phil back to get some real sleep and Dan thanks her for watching out for Phil while he couldn’t. The conversation with her after their wedding will forever be seared into his memory, he knows now that Phil got his x-ray eyes from his mother because she scanned him, saw straight into his heart, and knows without Dan having to tell her how much he loves her son. He and Kath are on the same wave length on the loving Phil thing. Dan foresees more conversations with her about Phil’s wellbeing.

He speaks briefly to Martyn and Cornelia, assuring them that he’s alive and well, memory intact and everything. He talks to his dad and brother, but his mum already told them the whole story so it’s a short conversation.

His mum sneaks a pizza in and Dan worships the ground she walks on. His grandma admits that she’s behind the sunflowers and Dan knows by the twinkle in her eye that she knows full well that he fucking hates sunflowers and is daring him to say something. Dan thanks her very formally for the flowers until they’re both giggling and his mother looks lost.

Those couple hours drain him of a lot of energy, but he wouldn’t give them up for the world. A physical therapist comes in after a couple hours and teaches him some exercises to strengthen his muscles. Apparently being immobile for a week is long enough to lose some muscle mass. He sweats through the lesson and his mum promises the physical therapist that she’ll teach them to Phil to make sure Dan actually does them.

Traitors, the lot of them.


	5. Chapter 5

  
He falls asleep around 7:00pm in the middle of a heated debate with his grandmother about the best season of “American Horror Story.” She has a lot of wrong opinions, but she keeps him on his toes and it’s incredibly distracting.

The next morning he wakes to Phil not so quietly coming through the door. Graceful as a hippo, he manages to catch his toe on something and stumble into the room. He barely notices it and just keeps moving, so used to his own clumsiness.

Like they discussed, he gets to go home albeit with strict instructions about his home care. He watches bemused as his mum forces Phil to take notes and quizzes him on the uber ride back to the duplex. His grandmother leaves them at the hospital with a special look to Phil that Dan doesn’t understand and a kiss on the cheek for Dan.

When they get back, Dan gulps in a big breath of air and finally he’s home. This is the smell of the last several years—Dan and Phil’s house, their laundry detergent, their candle obsession, the smell of dying house plants, it’s comforting and familiar and after more than a week with the stringent smell of hospital, it’s pure peace.

Dan’s mum kisses his forehead and promises that she’s “only a phone call away, dear, call me if you need me.”

She pulls Phil into an equally intense embrace, whispers something in his ear and looks at him sternly. Dan’s not understanding why all his maternal figures are so harsh with Phil and he plans to ask him as soon as his mother leaves.

The door clicks behind her as she leaves and Dan practically hears Phil’s sigh mirror his own. Finally, it’s back to just the two of them where things make sense. Dan turns to Phil with a smile, the two of them standing awkwardly by the front door.

“I thought she’d never leave,” he says. The joke falls flat.

“She was barely here three seconds,” Phil says, not looking him in the eye and turning to walk farther into the house. Dan sees the remnants of breakfast from the morning after their wedding still in the kitchen sink. That’ll need to get sorted later, but it’s a reminder that Phil has barely been here either and he’s gone through just as much.

“It was just a joke,” Dan says as he follows Phil through the house and into the lounge. “Shall we watch an anime?” he asks, now unable to read Phil and desperate to get back onto familiar footing.

“I’m going to take a nap,” Phil says as he walks immediately into his room. Dan watches him go. It’s best to let him recover. He’s been stretched too thin for too long. Maybe after he naps they’ll be back to their normal dynamic. Or, whatever is normal these days.

He throws on an old episode of “Attack on Titan” knowing that he won’t need to pay close attention to it because he’s seen it so many times. He puts on a beanie because his head has gotten really cold now that he has no hair and wraps himself into a blanket on his side of the couch.

Several episodes go by before he hears Phil moving around again. He traces the sound of his footsteps into the kitchen and ten minutes later, Phil walks into the lounge with two drinks in his hand.

“Hot chocolate?” he says, offering it to Dan. Dan feels a smile creep onto his face, maybe Phil was just tired and needed that nap. Maybe he’s just been imagining everything.

Except Phil’s careful to make sure that his hand doesn’t brush Dan’s when he hands the hot chocolate over. He holds it by the mug and offers it handle first which probably burns his hand. Phil’s never done that before. Dan’s smile slips from his face. He mutters, “thank you,” and turns his attention back to the show. There’s nothing a little anime can’t fix.

Phil drops onto his side of the couch, a little farther to the side than normal, like he doesn’t want Dan’s feet to touch him. Dan subtly bends his knees and brings his feet farther onto his side of the couch, not understanding why Phil’s acting like this, but not wanting him to feel uncomfortable.

Phil gratefully spreads out a little more, holding his coffee in his hand and turning his attention to the anime. He’s wearing his glasses and for a moment Dan catches the show in their reflection before he turns his attention back to the show as well, not wanting to get caught while Phil’s acting so removed.

He spends the rest of this episode drinking his hot chocolate and trying to imagine what went wrong. Does Phil hate him now? Does he resent him for all the comments from their audience online? What happened while Dan was in that coma?

They pass the day this way, watching anime and not really speaking. As the sun begins to set, Dan goes to poke Phil with his foot, stopping at the last second when he remembers this new Phil doesn’t like to be touched. He can respect his new boundaries, it’s just really hard. It’s hard to go from the constant reassurance of someone by their touch to a brick wall between them.  
So instead of poking Phil’s thigh with his toe, Dan asks him if he wants to get a pizza.

“The usual?” Phil asks, looking at his phone and not at Dan.

“Sure,” Dan says and the brat in him rears its head, “tonight we can eat pizza and watch anime and tomorrow we figure out what to tell the viewers and whatever this is,” he points vaguely between them and Phil’s face freezes like he’s trying to not give anything away to the person who can read him best in the world.

“Pizza, anime, and an early night,” Phil agrees, ignoring the rest of Dan’s statement. He lets it go this time because they’re going to deal with it tomorrow. He’s tired and emotionally fragile, his best friend is acting weird and he really wants to cry and think himself into a black vortex of over analyzation.

The pizza comes and disappears pretty quickly. It’s only 8:00pm but Phil says he’s tired and is going to bed. With nothing else to really do, Dan decides it might be time for him to go to bed too. Phil stuffs him with the medication to keep his wound from getting infected. It’s almost healed, but the doctor says he has a couple days left on the anti-biotic. He then reminds him to do his physical therapy exercises.

Of course Phil would still make sure he’s okay even when he’s acting so weirdly himself. After he watches Dan swallow the pill, though, he makes a hasty retreat into his room and closes the door behind him.

Feeling like that door between them is much thicker than it actually is, Dan goes into his own room and lies down to sleep.

He should have known sleep wouldn’t find him so easily tonight. It doesn’t matter that he’s beyond exhausted. Turns out healing is more tiring than he knew and his body is ready to drop into sleep the second his head hits the pillow. His mind, unfortunately, is hyper alert.

With no anime in front of him to distract him, Dan can’t stop replaying the day over and over in his mind. Did he say something that hurt Phil’s feelings? He doesn’t think so. Even before they got married and had sex Phil would still touch him occasionally. Not like, groping him or anything, but he would casually brush his hand when he gave him his drink. It wasn’t the end of the world when Dan’s feet would brush Phil’s thigh while they watched a show together. Phil would make eye contact and speak to him about anything that came into his head.  
So why was he acting so differently now?

Did the tumor affect him so badly that he vastly misunderstood their situation? Sure, he asked Phil to marry him so that he would have no regrets, but he didn’t expect Phil to treat him like a real husband. He didn’t expect the love making or for it to feel so world-shakingly amazing.

Dan went into surgery knowing in his soul that Phil loved him and thinking that maybe they had a future together when he came through the other side. Was he that wrong?

He feels a tear slip down his cheek the fourth time he changes position, hoping he can drift into sleep and stop over-analyzing everything.

The more he lies here thinking, the more awake he gets and the more scared he feels. He’s a grown man and he’s tired of feeling so fucking scared all the time. Memories from the hospital creep in and even though he wasn’t scared at the time because he knew Phil had his back, his brain forces him to consider if he just slipped into a coma now. Is the coma-inducing agent completely out of his system? Is he sure? How does that even work anyway? What if he slips into a coma now and Phil doesn’t check on him and he just sleeps his entire life away?

It’s this thought that forces him out of his bed and down to Phil’s room before his better judgment can stop him. But it’s that knowledge from before the surgery in his soul that Phil loves him that makes him knock on the door.

He doesn’t hear anything for a moment so he knocks again.

“Phil,” he says loudly enough to wake him, but quietly enough to be respectful about it.

“Dan?” he hears in Phil’s sleepy voice, “What do you need, are you okay?”

“Can I come in for a second?” Dan says through the door.

“It’s open.”

Dan turns the knob and opens the door wide enough to accommodate his head. If this were a month ago, he would have taken that as an invitation to enter, but he’s not sure what the new rules are.

“Hey, um” he begins, not really sure how to ask for what he needs.

“What’s wrong?” Phil asks and he sounds like Dan’s Phil again for a second.

“I can’t sleep. I keep—“ he cuts himself off knowing how ridiculous this sounds, “Look, I know this sounds stupid or whatever, but I keep thinking I’m going to fall into a coma and never wake up and you’re like weirdly mad at me or something so you won’t check on me and I’ll fall into a Sleeping Beauty thing and my prince will never come and I’ll just die, um, so can I, can I stay here with you tonight? Just for tonight and I’ll stay on my side, I promise,” he says all in a rush and unable to look at Phil.

When the pause starts to turn unbearable, Dan finally looks over at Phil. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Dan pouts. He hates having to do this because he knows it isn’t fair, he knows that Phil can’t say no to this face because he says he looks so pathetic and cute when he does it, but Dan really needs to sleep and it’s not going to happen in his own bed.

Phil sighs and raises the duvet on the other side of the bed, a clear invitation, “I’m too tired to take all of that in, but of course I wouldn’t let you Sleeping Beauty yourself, you idiot.”

Dan climbs into the bed quickly before Phil can remember he now hates Dan and change his mind. He barely has time to get comfortable before he’s asleep.

He blinks awake what must be hours later to an empty bed, though the other side is still warm. He doesn’t get up right away. Turning over onto Phil’s pillow, he hides his face in it. The familiar smell of Phil’s shampoo and older man comforts him. He smiles briefly, remembering how strange it was to be eighteen and friends with AmazingPhil, who was a real life actual adult with two degrees. And he got to spend a week with him and one day they were best friends when Dan wasn’t paying attention.

All Dan’s friends before him were his own age and he never had a best friend until Phil. The four years between them doesn’t seem like much these days, but back when they first met, there were times that Dan felt like Phil might as well be an alien. Then he would do something so Phil and Dan would remember that Phil never treated him like he was younger or stupid for not knowing things yet. The longer they were friends, the fewer moments they had until these days Phil’s age never comes up. They’re equals in Youtube, partners, they both carry their weight and bring something to the table. They complement each other. And now for better or worse, they’re partners in life too.

Dan thinks back to his wedding vows, his nose still buried in Phil’s pillow. He promised to support Phil. He promised to always be his best friend.

If Phil doesn’t want him as a husband, then he can fulfill those vows as his friend. He just can’t lose Phil and another day like yesterday will lead them down that path.

Sighing heavily, he pulls himself out of bed. Looks like he forgot a shirt yesterday. Hmm, he looks down, and pajama pants too.

Not like Phil hasn’t seen it all before.

He returns to his room, hearing Phil running water in the bathroom. He pulls on a shirt and pajamas and moves to the kitchen to get a coffee. Phil had started the kettle. He grabs two mugs out of the cabinet and starts preparing their drinks.

He looks wearily at the dishes still piled in the sink, a strong acidic smell coming from them and decides to do something about the situation. He finishes the drinks, sets them aside where Phil will see his and can grab and go if he wants to avoid Dan, and gets down to cleaning the kitchen.

Nothing like getting back to normal by doing the household chores. Heaven knows Phil’s not going to do them without someone telling him to. Unless his family is coming over, then he’d clean in a total state of panic. Dan notes the open cabinets and remembers Phil preparing them drinks yesterday. He closes the cupboards like he has for years, not even annoyed anymore, and starts on the dishes.

As expected, Phil returns a couple minutes later, his contacts in and his hair brushed. Not as expected, he leans against the counter and seems content to watch Dan tidying. They coexist peacefully for several long minutes, Dan sneaking sips of coffee with sudsy hands and Phil quietly leaning against the refrigerator, sipping his drink and not speaking.

Maybe something in Phil’s bed last night went right for them. Maybe Phil did some thinking of his own. Maybe Dan over analyzed everything on his end and he came off weird and needy and fragile.

Phil watches Dan until he’s cleaned four or five plates and then hesitantly puts his drink down to grab a towel and start to dry. Dan feels him standing to his right and a remnant of the peace from before calms his racing thoughts.

At the end of the day, it’s Phil. Whatever is going on with them, this is Phil. And they’ll work it out.

They finish the kitchen and their drinks. Phil nods to the kitchen table and Dan follows him there. They learned a long time ago that they needed a special place for business decisions between themselves. The office felt too serious and their bedrooms weren’t neutral territory. The lounge was a safe place for leisure activities and they needed to distinguish between fun and their careers. Somehow that evolved into their table at the old flat being where they held ‘meetings’ between the two of them where they brought ideas and discussed what games they should play for the gaming channel, and it’s also where they decided to write a book and do a stage show.

Phil sits at the kitchen table first and Dan settles into his chair, grabbing the notebook they keep there for this exact reason. He flips to an open page, seeing Phil’s handwriting on the last page about the videos they put up while Dan was in the coma.

“We need to do a live show,” Dan says, filing in the silence. It isn’t until the words come out of his mouth that he realizes it’s the first thing he’s said out loud all day and they’ve now spent thirty minutes together. “Well, I at least need to do a live show and you need to make an appearance.”

Phil nods, “they definitely need to hear from you, from both of us, but you most of all. I think I really worried them.”

Dan aches to cover Phil’s hand with his own, “with good reason, though. It’s not like you were crying wolf.”

Phil looks to the side, clearly not agreeing but not about to vocalize it.

“Okay so live show for me today, and what else? Do you have any videos that we haven’t put up yet?” Dan asks, unsure of what exactly happened on their channels while he was out of commission. He knows they had a couple gaming videos ready to go and a video for each of them.

“I put up the flashgames vid and the online Pictionary,” Phil says. “I used my video in lieu of my live show, but I didn’t use yours. I couldn’t… I couldn’t put it up and pretend to tweet as you. So, you have that as a rainy day video.”

Dan lets Phil get away with this for now because they’re talking business and not about themselves. He knows how difficult everything has been for Phil. “I’ll have to wait until my hair grows back out to use it or they’ll know it’s an old one.”

“You could tell them today you have a video you filmed from before and you’ll need some time to get in the mindset of recording another,” Phil points out. “They’ll understand. They’ll probably like it if you have a new video on your channel sooner rather than later. Honestly, you’ll probably get some press out of this and it’ll be good to show you’ll be uploading regularly still.”

Dan’s always taken aback when Phil’s business brain comes out because he tends to have rather brilliant ideas but it’s not the context Dan is used to Phil’s creativity. He should learn to expect Phil to come up with out of the box things in every aspect of his life and not just YouTube.

“Good idea,” Dan says instead of what he’s thinking and they finish up by deciding to record a gaming video the next day to upload the day after. After a quick game of rock, paper, scissors, it’s determined that it’s Dan’s turn to edit that video.

“At least your other video is edited so you don’t need to go through it again,” Phil reminds him.

“Yeah,” Dan says, “but I might have been under the influence of the tumor when we edited it. I know you checked me, but I’ll give it another look just in case.”

Phil’s face does something funny when Dan mentions the tumor again. “Phil, it’s over you don’t have to keep looking like that when we bring it up.”

“It’s not necessarily over,” Phil says without looking him in the eye. His fingers rub the table like he’s searching for cracks or hidden doors, “you still have to have multiple scans every year and we know you’re predisposed to tumors now and—“

“Yes, we know I’m predisposed so we can use more preventative measures,” Dan says, and finally he feels like he’s getting to the crux of this new version of Phil that he likes a lot less, “and I can be scanned regularly to check. We now know the symptoms to watch out for and we can catch it early. It’s not perfect, but it’s fine, Phil.”

The look he receives lets him know that Phil doesn’t think it’s fine. But they both let it go for now in order to track down breakfast.

Today’s anime is ‘Food Wars,’ and Dan heartily eats his breakfast while they watch. This show usually puts Phil in a better mood and he’s desperate enough to use all the tricks he has up his sleeve.

He tweets out that he’ll be doing a live show later that day and that Phil will join for a bit. He spends the hours in between breakfast and the live show by cleaning his room. Apparently tumor Dan didn’t believe in cleaning his room and there’s still a bottle of lube with no top spilling out on his bedroom floor.

He leaves that to clean up until last, caught between wanting to think about their wedding night and wanting to ignore it forever since he can’t have it again.

Taking a look around the room after an hour of cleaning, he wonders if his uncleanliness was a symptom that he and Phil missed. They had a rough idea of all the things that were wrong—Dan’s mood, his filter disappearing, missing some obvious social cues, the headaches, but was his room being such a mess one of them?

On second thought, he catches sight of the lube out of the corner of his eye, maybe this new cleanliness kink is a symptom of post-surgery Dan. He felt compelled to clean the kitchen and now he’s cleaning his room. Could it be?

He considers this for a long time, longer than he probably needed to and rather than think about other painful things. Maybe the desire to clean everything isn’t a symptom of how his brain works now, but rather a desire for a new start, a clean slate. Maybe he wants to burn down the old and start fresh.

It doesn’t matter either way, he thinks on the second hour of cleaning and sorting his books alphabetically by genre, even if he erased old Dan from the earth, this new Phil doesn’t seem to want anything to do with him except platonically. He still has yet to even touch Phil since holding his hand when he first woke up out of the coma. Even in sleeping in the same bed, he managed to avoid Dan.

He feels like himself from a long time ago, when he was younger and angrier at the world and unsure where he could fit into it. Mad at not fitting into the cookie cutter mold of the heteronormative world, mad at his parents for not understanding him even when he refused to express himself to them. Just mad.

He slams an old copy of The Catcher and the Rye onto his bookshelf, stupid book. The room is as clean as it’s going to get. He picks up the lube finally, knowing Phil was the one to throw it on the ground while he slicked himself up for their second round. He remembers holding himself open, aching to be filled by his husband. He remembers feeling like one person in two bodies when Phil finally entered him again. He remembers sobbing with pleasure and intimacy and the Philness of it all. He remembers being the happiest he’s even been in his entire life. Right in that moment.

He moves to throw the lube away, there’s not enough in the bottle to save anything.

He can’t do it.

Like a complete hoarder, he puts the cap back on and shoves it in his bedside drawer. The only thing left to clean now is himself.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is still in the process of being written, though it's about 15,000 words right now. Updates should be every 2 weeks or so. Please come talk to me on tumblr at nomorellamadrama
> 
> It has not been beta'd so all mistakes are mine. Let me know if you are interesting in beta reading. Thanks!


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